


Thief for Hire

by rinverse



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Industrial Revolution, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, Fluff and Smut, Jae-ha POV, Jae-ha is a thief, Kija is basically rapunzel but male and very gay, M/M, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Resolved Sexual Tension, sexual tension be real in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinverse/pseuds/rinverse
Summary: Five years ago, a painting worth a small fortune disappeared from the Hakuryuu estate. Jae-ha would know, for he was the one to steal it. Now, Jae-ha has been summoned by the son of the man he once robbed, a boy with a tempting offer and even more tempting pay — a million crowns.But as new feelings twine with memories of an encounter that neither of the men has managed to forget, Jae-ha begins to suspect that this job might just prove to be more than he'd bargained for.——(aka that Industrial Revolution AU where Jae-ha laid claim to Kija’s heart and now he’s back to steal it)
Relationships: Jae-Ha/Kija (Akatsuki no Yona)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 77





	1. The White Dragon Crest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to a new JaeKi fic because I can't seem to stop myself from writing for this ship! :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy Chapter 1! I'd love to see your thoughts in the comments if you feel like sharing them! :)

Only one reason was there that anyone would dare stand out in a place like Kuuto and that reason being none other than sheer stupidity. But Jae-ha was no fool. He simply indulged in attention like he’d do in fine wine and the allure of someone else’s wealth — recklessly, without a healthy sense of limit or consequence. If there was such a thing as restraint, Jae-ha had simply never heard of it. Now was not the time to learn.

No, not now when his old habits served him so well. Not when his pocket was heavy with the heft of gold — so well indeed. Greed was his lever. Greed was his only god.

Jae-ha walked Kuuto’s twisting streets alone but not without the company of shadows, silhouettes of the young pickpockets who’d still not heard to beware of him. They would, whether with time or from experience rested on how daring they got. Before he’d raised his name to the respect of Kuuto’s thieves and the fear of its merchants, he’d been just a shadow too. Young and inexperienced like them, all of the ambition and none of the skill. But he’d learned — of course, many a time he’d burned instead but he’d taught himself to rise from it. Now, he could walk these crooked streets without a need to hide. Perhaps the alleyways remembered him from when he’d once scavenged their crannies, just a son of the streets. Or perhaps they’d mistake the proud, hard clip of the metal tips of his shoes for those of a merchant’s. Already, the sound of his footsteps bounced off the cobbles in the foreign words of a dare and a challenge. Not a scared kid’s hurried scurry anymore.

His feet carried him down an ambling path through Hiryuu Park, where the frail grass had been crumbled to dust and ash by the park’s stream of daytime visitors. At night, it looked near-sinister. The sun was setting beneath clouds and smoke, casting shadows upon the dark brick. There’d been no wind earlier that day, as there nearly never was in Kuuto, and a gray fog hovered overhead, its damp trails like smeared watercolour across the sky.

As the travellers’ market came into view, all warm lights and bustle of drunken chatter, Jae-ha brushed off his sleeves and straightened his collar, checked his blades. The workers at the market all stole quick looks in his direction as Jae-ha wove past stands and set out towards Gi-Gan’s booth at the very edge. 

It was a place that welcomed him, that much was true enough, but it did not mean that it did so with open arms. Here, the different gathered — those who’d not be seen walking on Kuuto’s streets in broad daylight. Small pickpockets, acrobats from foreign lands who only spoke foreign tongues, fortune tellers that could not read tarot but could steal a wallet as they made up your future. And yet, for all that they were different, it was dangerous to be different _from_ them, to be one of Kuuto’s bleak and dreary townsmen.

But Jae-ha was different from all. He lived to be different, to be unexpected, the memory of his presence everlasting.

Where dust from the factories and smoke from the air coated the townsmen’s coats, his was always clean and freshly dusted, the purple Kaitei silks bright against the sea of grey and black that was Kuuto. Most importantly, his coat held something that the average Kuuto man’s did not. Blades, sharper than his tongue and lighter than his step. Daggers with handles of elephant tusk, strong like bone, and tips laced with venom.

Gi-Gan’s was the only stall that was isolated from the rest, a small tent built around it to keep its secrets from prying eyes. As Jae-ha lifted the fabric at one edge, he was greeted by the warm, trembling stream of candlelight. Gi-Gan sat at her wooden table, in the middle of inking the last transaction into her worn ledger, no doubt.

“Sit,” she said without looking up and once Jae-ha had done just so, wrinkled her nose. “You smell like the city.”

Jae-ha could hardly deny it, for it was a fact. Everyone in Kuuto smelled like the soot and smoke from the factories. “Do you reckon it must be because I live in it?”

Gi-Gan looked up, her frown a match to his boyish grin. “What business?” she asked by the barter code. 

With a confident smile, Jae-ha pulled a trinket from inside his coat. It was a golden box, smaller than the size of his palm and fastened with a metal clasp, green emerald perched on top. When he undid the clasp and slid the lid back with his thumb, the box unfolded to reveal a small mechanical bird, it too of solid gold and eyes of emerald. Music played then and, as if on cue, the bird’s head began bobbing up and down by some hidden mechanism.

“A music box,” Gi-Gan said, feigning disinterest, but Jae-ha knew her well enough to tell that she had her eyes set on it.

He’d done this dance before; it was all a matter of time and the right incentive before she relented. “A music box made of gold.”

“Just some cogs and wheels.”

“Did you also see the emeralds?”

She gave him a leveled look as if she’d wish for nothing more than to throw him out and be done with him once and for all. “Hard not to when they’re half the size of my finger. Whose was it?”

“Before it was mine? Little does it matter.”

Gi-Gan clicked her tongue. “It might. I’d raise my price if I knew it came from a wealthy family.”

“Some secrets are better left untold,” the boy said. “It’s how I’ve kept my head on top my shoulders for so long.”

“And how you’ve accomplished _that_ is truly a mystery of our time,” Gi-Gan said. With a sigh, she extended her hand and made a gesture with her fingers for Jae-ha to hand the music box over. 

Once she had the trinket in her arms, Gi-Gan set it on the desk in front of her and pulled out a single magnifying glass to study the metalwork in detail. Jae-ha simply slouched back into the chair, tired. He was exhausted to the point where even a steaming cup of the strongest, darkest coffee on the entire continent would not keep him alert enough, and it was hardly the hour anyway. Straight after he finished his business here, he planned a quick dart to the Dragon Claw for a glass of whiskey and some nice company.

“One of the edges is chipped,” Gi-Gan said, as if to scold him.

“I’m only the thief,” he said in his defense. “Not my fault if the owner didn’t know how to take care of his belongings.”

“Fifty thousand crowns.”

Jae-ha scoffed. “Because of a scratch? I say seventy-five.”

“You say a lot of things,” Gi-Gan responded, “but the fact of the matter remains that you owe me money, boy. Big money. You’re still three hundred thousand crowns short.”

“I could be two hundred and seventy-five short.”

“You could but I’m holding you to three hundred.”

Jae-ha held her gaze but in it, he found no grounds to believe she’d back down and let him have his victory. She’d been in this business for many years, he knew. Knew by the wrinkles between her eyes, where her brows would knit closely together at a ridiculous offer or a tough client. Knew by the steadiness in her gaze and the rough rasp in her tone, always even. 

Gi-Gan was the type of collector that sought trinkets not for the sake of owning them, nor for the luxury of putting them on display, but for sale to the wealthy and bored merchants of Kuuto. One had to possess nerves of steel to deal with the likes of them.

The young man watched on as she poured crushed tobacco in her smoke pipe and brought it to one of the heat lamps, the bells dangling from her earrings in a jingle as she leaned forward.

“Smoking’s bad for the lungs, you know,” Jae-ha said finally and stood up to go.

There was a scoff of mockery at his words. “Whiskey’s bad for you too but it jogs the liver just right, doesn’t it?”

The sound of his own laughter followed him out as he turned his back on the tent and its warm candlelight for the cold of the night. By the time Jae-ha’d left the travellers’ market and taken the old path for the Dragon’s Claw, the moon had hidden deep behind clouds of smoke. The air was crisp, though not clean, and a cold breeze fluttered the edges of Jae-ha’s coat. Beneath it, he wore a waistcoat and shirt, though the layers were not nearly enough to keep him warm. A glass of whiskey would do nicely though — jogs the liver, as Gi-Gan had said herself.

Kuuto was not a charming place by any standard, not by day and certainly not by night. And yet, despite its soot and dirt, its thieves and its merchants, this wretched city had something that had always kept Jae-ha there: an appreciation for men like him.

It was a city that held no sympathy for the weak and helpless. If there was something upon one’s desire, it had to be fought for, earned, fended against others. Kuuto’s streets held an appreciation for the fighters, for the enduring and the effort it took to preserve one’s title and dignity at a place which ate away at both until there was nothing left of either. Merchants were the rulers here but their rule did not last long. Empires rose and collapsed. Names came and went. And Kuuto had seen it all, its streets remembering stories that no longer mattered.

Indeed, this was where Jae-ha belonged. Of course, he’d want to see the charming ports of Awa someday and the canals in Fuuga where gondolas swam like fish, but for now, Kuuto was his home. Here, the streets would hear his story when it peaked and remember it for when it, too, had come to pass.

As Jae-ha headed down one of the little alleyways that would take him in front of the pub, he realised the shadows of the pickpockets had gone. But why? If they had half the sense he’d had when he’d been their age, they’d have waited until he was alone. This was an opportunity. He’d cut through a tight alley. There were no street lamps, no foot traffic at this hour. Nothing but the barely visible moon behind the smog. 

Suddenly, Jae-ha knew why. He wasn’t alone. He paused, listening, but instead of a sound, it was a _smell_ that gave it away. Not of smoke, which would not have given him pause, nor of ale, which would have been expected, but of fresh flowers, which was, of course, completely unusual. 

A man’s dark shape appeared at the head of the alley.

“What business?” asked Jae-ha, the remarkable scent of flowers a mystery.

“Your presence has been requested at the Hakuryuu estate,” the man said, each word no more believable than the last as he spoke.

Jae-ha frowned, though he was not sure the man could see it past the shadows crowding Jae-ha’s face. “And your sigil?”

For a moment, it appeared as though the man would not move at all but then, with some disdain, he slowly peeled back his coat to reveal a pin. Jae-ha need not look in closer to recognise the White Dragon crest.

Not a lie then, but what of this sudden appearance? “Did the Councilman say what he wants of me?”

“This isn’t per the Councilman’s request,” the man said, causing Jae-ha’s brow to lift in confusion. “The young master has a job for you.”

“Junior does?” 

As if. What job could the son of a wealthy merchant have for him? No, there was something else at play here. His mind swirled with possibilities of explanations but he kept coming back to one, only one. One night from five years ago, one moment shared in the dark candlelight, a thief caught red-handed. This was it. This was how he’d get caught. Perhaps Junior had already gathered the townswatch at his estate, laid in wait as they waited for Jae-ha to fall for the trap. But he wouldn’t, no, he wouldn’t. He knew better than that.

Jae-ha could make a run for it, perhaps. His leg wasn’t too bad, despite the early spring chill, but the ache was strong today. It was always there, had been for the better part of a year now, since he’d broken it falling down the steep roofs of the Hiryuu Bank, but tonight it felt worse. He was tired, a little too heavy on his feet, limbs too loose.

“I fear that I must decline,” said Jae-ha. “I have more pressing matters to attend to than one of Hakuryuu Junior’s many whims. Isn’t it past his bedtime anyway?”

“He’d prefer it if you came willingly,” responded the man then, slowly advancing.

The young thief tried to swallow around the heartbeat in his throat. With a swift dive of his fingers to the inside of his coat, Jae-ha pulled out a dagger. Its blade, dark steel, shone black against the moonlight but its handle was white as stone. He twirled it between his knuckles expertly, from forefinger to pinky. Plunging, rising, disappearing again.

The man simply smiled. He pushed the coat back to reveal a piece of metal at his hip.

Despite the thin veil of smoke obscuring the moon, light bounced against the metal of the man’s gun. Jae-ha had seen pistols, of course. In fact, he’d been shot at with them before but he’d never used one, nor did he imagine he would. They were unreliable: for every shot that fired, two would not. He still had a chance. To run, now. As big a brute as this man looked, he did not smell of gunpowder and blood; he smelled of flowers. For the love of kings, no killer smelled of flowers.

“My apologies,” Jae-ha said then, dagger suddenly very still in his hand. “Little did I know I was bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

But as Jae-ha turned back around, with every intention to flee, two more men emerged from the shadows at the opposite end of the alley.

“Well,” the young man said, “do you two also have guns?”

The reflection of moonlight against slick metal gave him an answer enough. Behind him, he heard a _click_ , the distinct change of cogs at the release of the safety of a trigger.

“Alright then. Suppose I’ve had reason to reconsider.” Jae-ha sheathed his dagger, then attempted a laugh. “Let us not keep Junior waiting for long. How old is he now anyway? Would he throw a tantrum if we arrive late?”

His answer was only the weak lash of wind as it picked up dust and leaves from the ground and scattered them further up the alley.

The walk through town was long, tension knotting down Jae-ha’s spine like cold tendons crawling up his skin. He could be walking on the path to prison and he’d not know. For all he could imagine, Hakuryuu Junior had orchestrated this as a reprimand for the stolen Li-Tao from five years ago. Jae-ha was already wanted, his face painted on posters around town — he’d evaded the townswatch for this long, was this how he’d get himself captured? But he dared not flee. With two burly men bracketing his sides as they walked, and one behind, fingers on his gun, there was no escape. Not at this range, not if he didn’t want to get riddled with lead.

At the wealthy end of Kuuto, the streetlamps cast ropes of light atop the cobbled path. The air was clear here, it filled Jae-ha’s lungs as pleasantly as countryside breeze, none of the coal and soot that settled with a deep cough. It was quiet. Too quiet, perhaps, and Jae-ha expected, with breath drawn to his lips, to see a garrison of townswatch officers at the next hillside. 

The men led him through a gate then and into a manicured garden, thick with the smell of tulips in bloom and the new nectar scent of early dewberries. Suddenly, the linger of flowers onto the men’s clothing came stronger, all around him, engulfing him in wait for late spring and a long summer. No birds were singing, no frogs calling, but there was one sound that stood out. The soft chirps of spring-field crickets came calling from under the leaves along the sides of the garden. With it, Jae-ha heard that high-lonesome sound of spring, the evening chorus of peepers as they sang from every wet patch of ground and between leaves.

He’d never been on this side of the estate before. The house itself stood as he remembered it, grand and large enough to fit a dozen families, but the gardens lacked the pompous grandeur of a merchant’s manor. Light filtered out between the house’s half-shuttered windows, casting patterns on the garden path. Jae-ha caught glimpses of night butterflies as their wings gleamed against the glow. 

As they followed the path to the house, the front door stood empty, the warmth inside coming out in waves. No townsmen officials yet, no rifles pointed at Jae-ha’s chest.

“Young master,” one of the lackeys called out as they waited in the foyer, by the staircase. “We’ve come back.”

Jae-ha had to admit, he liked the Hakuryuu mansion. After all, it was one of the grandest manors in Kuuto. It was difficult not to appreciate expensive taste when you saw it and for what it was worth, this house dripped in merchant wealth. He’d noticed it, of course, even the first time he’d been here — walls panelled in dark wood, floors set with gleaming square tiles of black and white stone, all in good taste, all impeccably crafted and picked to match. Brown-glass chandeliers floated like strings of jellyfish near the ceilings. And coming down the mahogany staircase, every other step a skip, there was Hakuryuu Junior.

“If it isn’t the elusive thief of Kuuto himself,” the boy said by way of greeting.

“Glad to know my reputation precedes me,” Jae-ha responded with a lazy smile. “It’s most certainly been a pleasure getting held at gunpoint and forced here by your lackeys, Junior.”

As the boy descended the last few steps, he gave a solemn look towards one of the men. “I thought I’d made myself clear to extend a _friendly_ invitation?”

The lackey on Jae-ha’s left shrugged. “You said he’d go quietly. He most certainly didn’t look it.”

“I said no such thing. How could I predict he’d go quietly when I hardly know this man?” the boy argued. “You were to treat him as a guest.”

“If this is how you treat your _guests_ , I’d hate to know how you’d treat your enemies,” Jae-ha said.

At the remark, the son of the Hakuryuu Councilman turned to look at him. He wore the colours of his house, of course — a white waistcoat and matching trousers, offset by a single blue kerchief lining the jacket’s breast pocket. The White Dragon crest stood pinned neatly on top, a white-silver miniature of a dragon eating its tail. It went without saying that Jae-ha remembered the young son of the Hakuryuu house. He did not know the boy’s name but he remembered how blue his eyes had been then, how much more vibrant they had somehow become, five years later. That blue greeted him now that Hakuryuu Junior’s eyes took him in.

“Please, do accept my apologies,” the boy said, motioning for Jae-ha to follow him as he set towards one of the many hallways. “I’d offer you a tour around the estate, though I suppose there’s hardly any need considering you’ve been here before.”

Jae-ha stiffened. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

He caught sight of an amused smile as the boy rounded a corner, down another hallway. The men hadn’t followed them further into the house, having been dismissed by a gesture, perhaps, which Jae-ha hadn’t been able to catch. As Junior led the way, Jae-ha took his chance to look around, opportunities presenting themselves nearly at every side — to swipe a small glass and metal figurine off the mantel of a fireplace, to nick a marble ashtray atop a table, a golden fountain pen set by some letters.

“Don’t bother with the pen,” the boy said and Jae-ha glanced up to see Junior had turned around to study him. “It’s defective, sprays ink everywhere. It’s certainly more trouble than it’s worth, I can assure you.”

Perhaps, but it looked to be worth a whole lot and no one was going to pay Jae-ha for his troubles any better than a lump of gold could.

“Can’t the same be said about everything else around here?” Jae-ha asked.

Junior smiled and led him through a set of double doors. They entered what Jae-ha’s mind vaguely supplied was a tearoom, the knowledge courtesy of all the careful planning during the heists he’d pulled. It would seem retiring to one’s tearoom was an awfully popular habit amongst Kuuto merchants, a habit which Jae-ha had, of course, exploited on many an occasion. 

“Do make yourself comfortable,” the boy said as he pointed to a set of futons in the middle of the room. “Chi’Shin tea?”

Jae-ha shook his head. “I only drink whiskey after sunset, thank you very much.”

The boy pursed his lips but nevertheless poured him two fingers of a glass, letting Jae-ha pick the bottle from an assortment in one of the cabinets. From the comfort of the futon, and were these expensive seats so very comfortable, Jae-ha watched Hakuryuu’s back, where the shoulders filled out the shirt at all the right places and his hair was tied back in a low ponytail, a fashion of the times. His hair was just as silver as the Hakuryuu colours, so pale in the moonlight that it looked near-translucent, like night clouds.

Back when Jae-ha had stolen that original Li-Tao, the boy had looked halfway between adolescence and adulthood. Now, he must be the exact age that Jae-ha had been then, perhaps a few moons over. But he somehow looked older than that — perhaps it was the eyes. He had that look, of restrained fervour known only to those who’d learned patience. Patience like that only came with age and wisdom and yet Junior’s eyes spoke of it so clearly.

Hakuryuu shuffled nervously as he took a seat opposite Jae-ha, perhaps uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the older boy’s gaze. “I’m afraid the staff has already retired for the day but I can offer you scones from earlier this morning.”

“Are they poisoned?” asked Jae-ha.

“Please, I have no use of you dead.”

“Then shall we skip the pleasantries,” the thief suggested, business on his mind, “and get to the point where you explain what use you have of me alive?”

The boy took a scone for himself, almost as if to prove a point. “Very well. As you know, an original Li-Tao oil worth nearly one hundred thousand crowns disappeared from this estate five years ago.”

Of course, Jae-ha had found a buyer for nearly double that price. “A terrible shame. You have my condolences.”

Junior gave him an amused look, his smile a crescent moon of mirth and entertainment. “Yes, well, my father didn’t mourn the loss for long. I imagine he was shaken more by the fact that someone had broken into his gallery. As far as I know, he was assured that it would be impenetrable and the locks on its doors fool-proof. State of the art, you see.”

“I do seem to remember reading about that in the newspapers,” Jae-ha said, his own smile hidden behind the glass of whiskey as he raised it to his lips.

“I am sure you do,” the boy said with another pleasant smile. 

“Yes, it was the talk of town. Though one thing that eluded the press and I couldn’t help but suspect is that the thief likely had an accomplice. Such a heist is no small feat.”

“An accomplice, you say?”

“Someone on the inside,” Jae-ha said and finally gained the reaction he’d been waiting for: a small blush crept up Hakuryuu’s cheeks, the faintest pink that looked blood-crimson against the white of his skin.

This dance was nice, side-stepping the truths and moving in rhythm around confessions. Jae-ha was surprised that the young Hakuryuu knew how to play this game. One had to be a thief or one of the merchants of highest standing to speak of business as though in jest. And yet, here he was, this young merchant in training, all grown up and full of surprises.

“Regardless, I have a job for the thief who stole that Li-Tao,” the boy said, all business again. “A job only fit for a man of his calibre.”

Jae-ha clicked his tongue. “Then you might have better luck talking to him.”

“Perhaps, but I’ve decided to settle on you,” Junior said. “I’m sure I can persuade you to take the job with the money I’m about to offer.”

“You can certainly try.”

Junior smiled, the edges of his mouth so sharp one could cut themselves were they not careful. “A million crowns.”

If Jae-ha had been caught mid-sip, he'd have likely choked. There was a long moment during which Jae-ha’s heartbeat accelerated with fear he’d misheard and hope that he hadn’t.

“One _million_?” he asked, incredulous.

“Indeed, not a crown less,” the boy confirmed. “Next week, I will come of age to spear-head my father’s business. You’ve heard, I suppose, of the gunpowder imports from Xing, the coal trade routes from Sei, and the Hakuryuu shipping company’s share in it all?”

Hakuryuu Junior looked at him — and at that moment, smile not at all naïve or innocent, he looked and talked exactly like a Councilman’s kid. Not yet a merchant, but one in training. He looked like all the rest of them, with their money ready to be flung at every whim and Jae-ha felt a fool, for he knew what a million crowns could do to a man and yet he _wanted_ it. Greed was his lever and tonight, it was at work.

“Well, considering I don’t live under a rock, yes, I’ve heard.” Jae-ha’s own mind was still sat on the prospect of a million crowns, Hakuryuu shipping company be damned. “Congratulations to you, I suppose?”

“Why, thank you but let’s not rush,” Junior said. “Recent events have, well, led to my early disownment.”

Jae-ha felt his eyes widen. He could not help it, could not hide his surprise. “Why?”

“This and that,” the boy said unhelpfully. “Point of the matter is that I’m not getting a dime out of the Hakuryuu legacy. Now, I don’t mind much about the fortune, though I’d like to bestow my father with a small parting gift. You see, something to remember me by.”

“It’s a luxury not to mind about that kind of fortune, you know,” Jae-ha commented. “Yet, you’re willing to squander your last crowns on a thief.”

“I consider it a price I’m willing to pay.”

“Pardon my rudeness, Junior, but a kid like you, pampered as you are, won’t survive a day out on the streets of Kuuto without a dime to spare.”

The words caused a frown on Hakuryuu’s face and though it didn’t suit him at all, Jae-ha was glad to see it. It wasn’t that he disliked him in particular but he disliked merchants in general. Hearing a pampered rich kid who’d never known of hardship go on about how easily they’d throw away a fortune to settle on the streets, it infuriated Jae-ha.

“I’ve made arrangements with Councilman Il to assist him with his business,” he said. “I assure you, there is no need to worry upon my behest.”

Of course he’d made arrangements. Of course there’d be a safety net to catch his fall. But that’s not how the average person lived in Kuuto. It wasn’t how the starved or the different in the travellers’ market earned enough crowns for a loaf of bread.

“And I assure you, I haven’t spent a single worry on rich merchants misplacing a few coins in their coffers.” Jae-ha took a last swig of the whiskey. “Now if you don’t mind telling me before daybreak, what’s my part in all of this?”

Hakuryuu Junior looked at him, near-wounded, then blinked and carried on. “My dearest father,” the boy began, “has a rather large assortment of paintings he’s paid a fortune to acquire from black markets in Xing and Kaitei. Now, these paintings have a rather impressive value to the Hiryuu museum so I suspect they would be delighted to have them recovered.”

Jae-ha smiled despite his better sense. “By a generous donator?”

“And an anonymous one at that.”

“Oh, how delighted your father would be to know the missing paintings have finally been recovered.”

“Precisely,” Junior agreed with a smile. “Now, my father is a cautious man, especially after the matter of the missing Li-Tao.” Jae-ha hummed. “He keeps the paintings in his new safe, a rather intricate craftwork if I can say so myself.”

“And you need a thief to break it open?”

“I need _you_ to break it open.”

Jae-ha whistled. “My, aren’t I flattered.”

“You should be. Well, are you the man to do it?”

Of course, Jae-ha was. A liar, a thief, and utterly without guilt, that too he was for a fact. But he’d keep to any deal, on the pride he’d never learned how to shed after all.

“Dear, for a million crowns, I’d do just about anything. Desecrating the last bit of your father’s already wounded dignity is merely an added bonus.” The thief extended his hand then. “Jae-ha.”

“I already know,” the boy said as he took it in his, and the two shook.

“While I’m glad you do, this is the point where you do me the courtesy of giving me your name in return.” Jae-ha raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want me to refer to you as “sir Hakuryuu”, I suppose?”

“ _Oh_! No, my apologies.” The boy was sporting a blush now, the shade of sunrise. “Kija.”

Kija. He’d never known. The kid who’d stared at him in shock and defiance five years ago hadn’t thought to give it to him. The young man who’d offered him a million crowns hadn’t either. Good to know some things didn’t change.

“Well, Kija, can I see the safe?”

The boy nodded, still flushed to the strands of his hair, but said nothing as he led them out the tearoom and up the stairs. Warily, keeping one eye on the guards, none of whom seemed to pay much mind to him or Kija, Jae-ha followed Junior down a hall. Of course, he knew where they were headed, he’d been here before. 

Kija held the door to his father’s study open as Jae-ha stepped inside. Little had changed in the last five years since he’d last been here — the walls were still lined with the same wooden panels, the same Xing rug beneath the mahogany desk. The only difference, and it was no small detail, was that the room felt significantly smaller. The far-east wall had been pushed forward and replaced by a brass-metal panel, from ceiling to floor and wall to wall on the side.

Jae-ha stood still, resisting the urge to scratch his head. He stared at the metal wall and imagined how thick it must be, how impenetrable. But no matter how long or hard he stared at it, the vault would not open under his gaze.

“ _Huh_ ,” he said a long moment later. “Shouldn’t you have hired a demo guy?”

“Demo?”

“Demolition,” Jae-ha explained. “You know, the _boom_ and the _baam_.”

Kija made a noise that was akin to what Jae-ha imagined a small bird choking would sound like. “Well, the point is that the safe should stay intact, which most certainly rules out explosives. It needs to be unlocked.”

The thief turned around to see if the boy was being serious. “This isn't a safe. It's an entire _wall_ , probably about as thick as your father's pockets are deep.”

Kija nodded. Simply, as if the thought wasn't absurd.

In turn, Jae-ha laughed at the madness. Already, his fingers burned to get to work. “You’d better give me that golden pen with my million after this is done.”

“Then you’d better earn it.”

Jae-ha bestowed him with a most bemused grin. “You just watch me work, my dear. Watch and learn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the start of this fic! The story itself is fully written but I'll be uploading the next 3 chapters once a week, every Wednesday, as it would be easier to manage while working on finishing the Prisoner Dilemma
> 
> That being said, next Wednesday, we'll be getting a wee glimpse of what happened five years ago, when Jae-ha stole that Li-Tao. Stay tuned and have a fantastic week! :)


	2. Of Tulip and Dewberry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, dear Reader! I hope you enjoy this chapter at least as much as I enjoyed writing it! The characters of Jae-ha and Kija have been really fun to explore in this setting so I hope you, too, find them interesting! :)
> 
> I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments if you want to share your thoughts! :)

A cold autumn gale had been blowing in for hours on the night when Jae-ha first met Kija, five years ago. Jae-ha had been a few moons shy of his twentieth year, already graduated from the streets of Kuuto and moving on to greater challenges. There’d been no need to pick stranger’s pockets, not any longer. He’d just pulled off his first heist a few weeks prior, he’d been giddy on his victory and drunk on the allure of the prospect of another one.

Even now, Jae-ha remembered that night, how he’d scaled the walls of the Hakuryuu mansion, his gloved fingers tailor-made so he could grasp the tiny gaps between the stones for purchase. At the time, he’d wondered why it couldn’t have been brick. Bricks were much easier to climb, so much easier. But ease was not part of the job, nor was comfort. And as the harsh fall winds lashed against the side of the house, comfort was nowhere to be found. He’d not found it on the streets of Kuuto, he’d not found it with the crew from the travellers’ market, and he would certainly not find it at the side of Hakuryuu manor, he’d known already.

Earlier that day, Jae-ha had heard the Councilman had left on business in Fuuga. Truly the perfect opportunity that the young thief could have asked for.

It had been past the servants’ work hours and they’d gone, but he’d paid one of the maids to leave the light on and a window open in the study. The moon had long since hidden behind dark clouds. Jae-ha had chased the dim light filtering out of glass, on the second floor of the house.

Climbing through the sill, however, he had quickly made two very important discoveries. One, the room he’d found himself in hadn’t been the study — it’d been a bedroom. And two, perhaps most shocking of all, he hadn’t been alone in the mansion, as he’d originally thought. A young boy had stood by the bookshelf on the other side of the room, blue eyes widening.

The two had been very still then — Jae-ha having turned to stone, one leg over the sill, and the boy still holding up a book in his hands. 

“Do you work for my father?” the boy had asked then, the first of the two to speak. 

Kija had looked about fifteen or so then, too young for Jae-ha to threaten and about ten years too old to be convinced Jae-ha was just a nighttime monster on its way to hide under the bed.

Jae-ha’d frowned. “Have any of your father’s men ever come in through the window, at night?”

The boy’s mouth had opened into a little O, as if in sudden realisation. “Are you here to steal something then?” 

Having seen no point in denying it, Jae-ha had simply nodded.

“Aren’t you too young to be a thief?”

“Aren’t you too young to know what a thief is supposed to look like?” Jae-ha’d replied. “Are you going to shout for help?”

“No,” the boy’d said proudly, chin held high. “There’s no one else here and besides, if you want to steal something, I won’t stop you. Nothing here is mine.”

Jae-ha had found the logic odd, coming from a merchant’s kid and in the presence of a thief, no less. He’d simply shaken his head though and come in through the sill, too starved for the money to turn his back now. The boy hadn’t moved, he’d only set his book on the nightstand and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Taking this as the only permission he’d ever get, Jae-ha’d crossed the room, made his way to the door.

“Tell me what it’s like,” young Kija had said suddenly then, “living the way you do.”

The older boy had frowned, fingers closed around the doorknob. “Living like what, a thief?”

“Like a free man,” and then, “You live by your own rules, don’t you.”

The boy ended nearly every sentence with an air of demand, even those that should have been posed as questions. Jae-ha suspected it must simply be a result of having never been told _no_. But he’d learn. Oh, everyone did, some sooner than others.

“And what of it?” Jae-ha had asked, patience running thin.

“I want to live like that too,” pressed the boy. “I want to leave this house and live by my own rules.”

The thief had turned the knob and without a backward glance, he’d said, “All the best to you then. Now, if you’d excuse me—”

“Take me with you.”

Jae-ha had peered back then, just a single look. From where he’d stood, Jae-ha’d seen some hope in the blue of the boy’s eyes, albeit fruitless. It had been an impossible request, entirely selfish, and Jae-ha should have hated this entitled boy who would come to wealth in a few years and have anything he so desired. But he’d felt no hatred.

Instead, he’d wondered what must have made someone so young say something so desperate.

Frozen there, he’d taken in the room for the first since he’d come in — not for the limited edition books at the shelf, not for the golden frame of the mirror. He’d taken it in for what it truly was — a room devoid of very many personal belongings. A room that could have belonged to anyone just as well as it belonged to no one. A room that, in this boy’s eyes, might as well have been a prison. A very expensive one, granted, but a prison nonetheless.

“Perhaps,” the thief had said, “if you were a little older.”

“I’ll be a little older tomorrow than I am today.”

Jae-ha had smiled then. “Sound logic, young Hakuryuu, but I fear it’s not going to be enough to persuade me. Now, would you do me a favour and forget I was ever here?”

He hadn’t waited for an answer but the boy had called out after him anyway.

“Under one condition.” 

Oh, for the love of kings. “What _now_?”

And then the boy had said something simply baffling. “You should take his seal too.”

“I should what?”

“Take the Hakuryuu seal,” he’d said again. “Father uses it a lot, he’ll miss it.”

And so that night five years ago, Jae-ha had found himself taking both the Li-Tao and the Hakuryuu seal. He’d sold the first before the week was over, but the second he’d kept — the first trophy in a collection that he’d since begun amassing. 

Life had gone on, fast and unforgiving as were the days of a criminal on Kuuto’s streets. Jae-ha hadn’t had the time to look back on that night much, not when his days had been spent dangling off the roof-edge of Hiryuu Bank or fleeing Li Hazara’s gangsters. He’d sometimes seen the Hakuryuu son in passing, that hair and milk-white skin so stark in contrast to the dark soot falling from the skies, and every time he’d wondered if Junior would still be harbouring hopes for a different life or if he’d surrendered himself a cog to the merchant machine anyway.

Jae-ha didn’t know why the boy had been disowned, no rumours having reached his ears yet, but he burned to know. He wished to think himself impartial but deep down, he hoped Kija had chosen to rebel, that tiny spark of defiance he’d seen five years ago having turned to flame. 

Shortly after dawn, Jae-ha walked towards the travellers’ market. At this hour, few people were out on the streets: the factory workers going in for an early shift, the servants of the Councilmen’s houses on their way to the estates before the merchants awoke, the traders and bankers who worked odd hours. And of course, the small pickpockets who lurked about, mere shadows but ever-present. 

Jae-ha crossed the gates of the travellers’ market. This early into the day, the stalls were shut, their wooden plates pulled down. Only the crew would be here, as per Jae-ha’s request.

There indeed, sat atop the barrels at the back end of the market, were five familiar silhouettes. Times again, Jae-ha had worked with the crew on heists — those he could not pull off all on his own and those that he did not want to. To say he trusted them was first and foremost a question of what he trusted them _with_. Not his secrets, certainly, but information about others if indeed it served him better for the men to know it than it did for them not to. That extent of loyalty was about all which Jae-ha felt wise to allow himself in a place as dangerous as Kuuto.

Through the violet-blue shadows of early morning, Jae-ha watched the five men yawn and greet him with small waves and sleepy nods as he approached.

“Awful early for a meeting, innit?” said Rowen, a burly man twice his senior and with skin burned dark from his old days of sailing ships down the tobacco routes to Kaitei. “Never a good day when me mornings start with ye.”

Jae-ha feigned hurt at the words, hand to his chest theatrically. “I’ve been told I bring good fortune, mind you.”

“Laddie, last time ye asked we do somethin’ for ye,” said Rowen, “half of West Gate got blown ta bits, me leg damn-near with it.”

“But I paid you rather handsomely, didn’t I?”

The man frowned. “Four feet south and ye’d have been paying them gravediggers ta bury we corpses!”

“There’s hardly any need to sound so dramatic. It’s all in the past now _and_ you still owe me for the keys to the clocktower,” Jae-ha said unhelpfully. “I only need one thing: information on the Hakuryuu Councilman’s son.”

The youngest of the crew, Maya, gave him a wary look that Jae-ha knew to mean the request was troublesome. “Hakuryuu Junior?” he said carefully, tugging at a flat cap that sat halfway-down his forehead. “What about him?”

“Rumours, talk amongst the help, anything that is not meant for others to know. I need his secrets and I need them sooner rather than later.”

“Why Junior?” Rowen asked.

Yes, why indeed.

Jae-ha shrugged. “I happen to have a job from him now. Doesn’t it seem wise that I should want to know his secrets?”

“Ye know everyone’s secrets.”

“Not his, not yet. Merchants, they all want something — money, status, a wife and a mistress, a factory on 14th Street with funding from Hiryuu Bank’s coffers. As long as I know what they want, I have them exactly where I need them,” he said. “But I haven’t worked out what it is _he_ wants yet.”

Once, five years ago, a younger Kija had said he wanted to live by his own rules. Was that something he wanted still?

“He’s a merchant’s son, Jae-ha,” said Toku, “and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“No, he’s a merchant’s son who’s getting disowned,” the thief said, voice dropping low in thought and hesitation. He could see the ripple of surprise that his words caused amongst the crew. “Not knowing why is about as dangerous as going into a fight blindfolded and with just your fists.”

Knowledge was what forged the difference between every other street thug and a successful thief. A secret was not a coin — it held no bargaining power over the wrong person and lost its value in the spending. In a way, it was by far the only currency that Jae-ha knew to give him everything and cost nothing in return. Not knowing the reasons behind Kija’s disownment meant Jae-ha didn’t have an advantage, that he was without his shield, denied his armour. It meant that the man who had the upper hand was not him.

“For them clocktower keys then,” Rowen agreed.

“A deal is a deal,” said Jae-ha, a wicked smile to match his words. “Always a pleasure doing business with you.”

“What ye do ain’t business, laddie. It’s theft.”

“Live in Kuuto long enough and they become one and the same,” Jae-ha called behind his shoulder, voice like a song.

With the sun now rising from behind the mountains, Jae-ha had to blink against the brightness of its rays. He veered past the high-street market, where he nicked pieces of his breakfast: a red apple from a fruit stall, an oatcake from the bakers, a square-lump of freshly made parkin for the road. The walk to Hakuryuu manor was more scenic and less stress-inducing now that he was not being held at gunpoint by three burly men, he noted. If anything, it was rather peaceful. Saints knew, peace was not on Jae-ha’s agenda but it was welcome nonetheless. 

The estate was past the hillside and Hiryuu Castle, which divided the wealthy side of Kuuto from its struggling working class. Jae-ha reached the house only after the Hakuryuu Councilman had left for work. With a sense of surprise, he realised that he’d never, in fact, seen the estate during daytime. A shame, really, considering how very beautiful it looked at that very moment. Jae-ha took the path through the gardens, of course, where the aroma of tulips wafted in, mixed with the sweetness of early dewberries. This early into the day he could hear the finches and the sparrows sharing their love songs with the world, a flutter of their wings there and gone again. It was rare that Jae-ha would have an opportunity to witness beauty in something made not of gold or gems — rare but not unwelcome.

From where sunlight ventured into the open windows of the first floor of the estate, Jae-ha could see the cooks shuffling about in the kitchens and the maids tidying rooms. Suddenly, it struck him that he and Kija’d not discussed whether the help should see him in the house. After all, they were employed by the Councilman first and deployed at Junior’s aid second. Would they inform Kija’s father? Would Jae-ha being in the man’s study raise their suspicions?

Saints, it was only his first day on the job and Jae-ha was already uncertain. To knock on the front door or find another way?

But once a thief, always a thief, he supposed — Jae-ha had never been fond of the simple things either way and so he decided on the latter. From around the gardens, he remembered the way to Kija’s room, just as he remembered the outline of every house he’d been in perfectly, his memory impeccable. This time, as he rounded the house, half-hidden in the bushes, he saw a ladder had been placed against the side of the house. Perhaps it’d been placed for renovations on the roof but the _why_ mattered very little when all Jae-ha wanted was to be done with this fiasco.

He climbed up, the ladder’s wooden steps creaking under the weight, until about midway where he transferred himself to the ledge below Kija’s window. Jae-ha peeked inside, the window shut but the curtain drawn to let in light, and saw Kija there, fastening his blue tie against the reflection of his mirror.

_Merchants and their vanity_ , the thief thought in exasperation. _He’d look just as fine even with a crooked bucket slung over his head_.

Jae-ha knocked against the glass. Kija jumped, possibly yelped, and looked around in alarm. To say that wasn’t a sight to behold would have been a blatant lie. It certainly made Jae-ha’s morning a lot more pleasant.

When Kija saw the thief at his window, he walked over to the sill and pushed the window all the way open.

“You’re early,” the boy said.

After hauling himself up the sill and through the gap, Jae-ha checked his pocket watch. “I’m on time.”

“Yes, but I’d expected you to be late so for what it’s worth, you’re early. More importantly, why in King Hiryuu’s name did you come in through the window?”

Jae-ha frowned. “You never made it clear if the staff should see me.”

With a sigh, Kija stepped to the side to let Jae-ha in. “And you never asked so I assumed you’d simply use the front door, as normal people do.” 

“You seem to be assuming a great deal of things about me for a person who’s only known me since yesterday,” said Jae-ha with a smile. “Officially, anyway.”

Kija was pouting; it was oddly charming. “To address your concerns, no, you needn’t worry about the staff. They’ve been paid enough to pretend you’ve never been here.”

“No one is ever paid well enough to refuse a better offer.”

“You would know.”

The thief grinned, the edges of his mouth like a sharp knife. “Indeed.”

Inside the room, Jae-ha looked around. The sight was oddly reminiscent of their first meeting. It was confusing, the way a _déjà-vu_ usually was — the feeling difficult to place, almost as if Jae-ha had been presented with two identical paintings to see which one was the real piece and which, the fake. Only now, both the memory and the present were real, simply different stops of a single timeline. Beneath the stacks of books, the room itself had changed very little, but that was a rather pointless observation. The real change was that the room was barely even visible from the many books that lay scattered across the space, some open and others tucked away, many frailed around the edges and only few showing little signs of wear and tear.

“You’ve got more books.”

The statement was rather obvious but what he’d meant had largely gone unspoken: _You’ve got more books since the last time I was here_. He’d not said it but it settled in the space between them, the silent whisper of a memory.

Kija seemed amused. “Did you expect I‘d be reading the same dozen books, still?”

“I’ve not been expecting anything,” Jae-ha said, picking up a book left with its spine cracked open near the windowsill. He turned it around in his hand, the movement meaningless — he held no interest in a stranger’s words. “In fact, I’d never expected to be back in your room again and yet here I am.”

Kija leaned forward to snatch the book off Jae-ha’s hands, as if the thief would steal his secrets through the pages. “Fate works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?” the boy said.

This close now, he smelled of tulip and dewberry. Jae-ha felt the scent like perfume on Kija as the thief, too, leaned forward, felt himself drawn to it, the aroma sweet like honey. Absently, he wondered if Kija spent most of his time out in the garden rather than the house, having soaked up the fresh splash of flower and the sweet tinge of berries. Did he read his books there, did he push his head back against the rays, like a sunflower seeking out the light?

“I don’t believe in fate,” said the thief, though he was unable to take his eyes away from the sun freckles on Kija’s cheeks and the sunburn, like brushstrokes, across his nose and forehead.

Kija raised an eyebrow in interest, took a few steps back. “What do you believe in then?”

At that moment, Jae-ha only truly believed in beauty — Kija was the very epitome of it.

“Greed,” he answered instead. “It was greed that brought me here the first time and it’s greed that steers my return.”

“It’s a shame that you may think so,” Kija said. “Personally, I harbour no interest in cynicism.”

“Nor I in fairytales,” challenged Jae-ha.

In his line of work, he’d be long dead if he left matters to fate. He’d do well to remind himself of that, lest he let himself forget.

As Kija led them down the corridor and into his father’s study, Jae-ha watched the maids flutter about downstairs, not at all interested in the fact that a stranger, a man no less, had just left the young master’s chambers. Even if it struck him as odd, the thief said nothing of it, only closed the door of the study behind him. Kija made himself comfortable in one of the armchairs, a book in his lap. On the small table next to him, a maid had already placed a tray of hot buns, crumpets, and griddle cakes, jam and butter on the side.

“No scones today?” Jae-ha joked as he draped his coat across the back of the other armchair.

The boy scoffed. “I’m afraid you’d have to settle for this modest assortment. Would you care for some tea?”

“Coffee.”

“With sugar?”

“You’re already quite enough, thank you.”

Kija pinked around the cheeks. Satisfied with himself, Jae-ha turned to face the reason why he was even here: the metal wall of Councilman Hakuryuu’s vault. Time to get to work, he supposed.

The wall itself was perfectly barren of any dents or ornaments, the metal so well polished that it looked akin to a tinted mirror. In its reflection, Jae-ha could see himself, contemplation written on his face in the way his brows were knit together and angled upward at the far ends. His mouth was set, his jaw locked. It wasn’t the expression he wore to battle; it was the one he wore when presented with a puzzle that he could not immediately solve.

In the middle of the wall, there was a set of metal squares. They looked like the board of a chess game, though only twelve in total and divided into three rows. Atop each square, an ornate ball of black gemstone was placed. Jae-ha suspected those were the switches which, if rotated correctly, would trigger some mechanism and open the vault.

He’d never seen anything quite like it. A safe was a puzzle, but this one looked more like a piece of impressionist art than anything.

Yesterday, Kija had told him plenty about the vault. It required three different keys, though that was hardly an issue when Kija had access to the places where he knew them to be hidden. The problem was that each keyhole stood hidden behind a square of metal. The squares wouldn’t move, not until each of the switches on top had been rotated in the right direction — north, east, west, or south.

Now, Jae-ha tested out the rotation of the switches, sometimes placing a hand to the wall, sometimes an ear. The first step in the long and delicate process that was opening a safe was not, in fact, trying out random combinations straight away. It was the testing of its limits — what its cogs did, what they did not, how they moved and when they stopped. It was studying the clicks, some faint and others loud, those aimed to mislead and those meant to guide an expert’s ear. 

After about a few hours of tweaking and tinkering about, Jae-ha stepped back, took a bite from the lunch that had been brought in earlier. He narrowed his eyes at the odd creation that was the Hakuryuu vault, raising an index finger to his lips in contemplation.

“Any progress?” came Kija’s voice from behind him.

“Somewhat,” said the thief. “I can tell you that the squares with the keyholes are the left-most on the top row, the second on the middle one, left to right, and the right-most on the bottom row.”

Through the wall’s reflection, Jae-ha saw Kija lift his eyes up from his book. “How do you know?”

“Their switches aren’t functional. When I rotate them, they tick like all the rest but if I place my hand on the metal,” he said and demonstrated, “I don’t feel the vibration of the cogs working on the inside. That means they’re just decoys.”

“Fascinating,” said Kija after a sip of his third cup of tea.

_Fascinating_ was certainly not the word that Jae-ha would have used. _Clever_ , on the other hand, he would. _Clever_ he understood. After all, the makers who crafted safes need first learn how to crack them open. The makers of this vault must have once stood on the other end, just like he did now.

“If that’s nine switches in four possible directions, then...” the boy trailed off and quickly stood up to fetch a pen and spare paper. For several long moments, he seemed completely wrapped up in jotting something down, until he looked back up. “That’s over two-hundred and fifty _thousand_ combinations.”

Jae-ha whistled, though not at all fazed at the number as much as he was impressed with the quick calculation. “Are you good at everything?”

The boy tried to hide behind the lip of his cup. “Besides opening safes, I suppose.”

“Do you play the piano?”

“The flute.”

“Interesting,” Jae-ha said. “I imagine you’d be fairly good with your mouth, then?”

Kija choked on his tea. “I beg your pardon?”

Oh, Jae-ha could tell he’d be a pretty sight if he begged, only it wouldn’t be Jae-ha’s pardon that he’d be begging for. But he was getting ahead of himself again, the air of tulip and dewberry having perhaps rotten his brain.

“Facts and numbers are for the unimaginative, Junior. You like them because you’d sooner believe they keep men honest than admit they are the very reason why men learned to be dishonest in the first place,” he said. “But you’re wrong to believe so and you’re wrong about the vault.”

“And how am I wrong about the vault?” Kija asked, though his voice had not fully recovered its even tone.

“Each functional switch corresponds only to the keyhole on its row, meaning that each row is independent of the rest. Significantly fewer combinations that way, wouldn’t you say?”

“I won’t even pretend to understand how you managed to figure _that_ out.”

“I listened,” Jae-ha said by way of explanation. “When you place your ear to the metal and everything else is silent, you will hear the cogs on each row working independently from one another.”  
“Then,” Kija replied and jotted something down again, “that’s only about two-hundred combinations.”

“You and your numbers again.” Jae-ha smiled. “But yes, our odds are looking a great deal more optimistic now.”

“Suddenly this safe doesn’t seem too fool-proof.”

Oh, but it did. In fact, it was the most elaborate piece of puzzle that Jae-ha had ever had the pleasure of seeing with his eyes. And he’d be the first to break it open, a pioneer in his craft.

“Don’t be fooled,” Jae-ha told the boy. “It’s designed to trick you into thinking all switches are functional and working together; only a person who’s been around safes long enough will know to test if the cogs work together or not. It further has three separate keys and we have the benefit that you can get access to all three of them. It’s an impossible safe if we didn’t have you on the inside.”

“You sound impressed.”

“Because I am,” the thief admitted. “It’s quite unlike any safe I’ve seen before. Was it made in Kaitei?”

“What gave it away?”

Jae-ha smiled. “They like rotary designs. Very modern.”

“I shall keep it in mind when I look into getting my own safe,” Kija said, though it was clear he meant it in jest. “Perhaps I’d hire you again to help me pick one you’d not break into.”

“The only thing that’d keep me from breaking a safe open is if I have no interest in its contents, Junior.”

“And what _does_ interest you?” 

“Oh, you know, mostly paintings, sometimes jewellery, and on rare occasions,” Jae-ha said with a pointed look, “someone’s heart.”

“Please, no need to humble yourself,” Kija countered.

Jae-ha gave him another of his wicked smiles. Staying humble had never been a strong point of his, nor a prerequisite for success. And if something did not serve his purpose, it did not serve him at all.

He stayed until the sounds of the cicadas and the crickets came tweedling through the window, their little noises like music, and the sun had burned itself out, leaving dark-red streaks across the sky. His cue to leave had come when Kija had announced his father would be returning within the hour. It was odd to think Jae-ha had hardly noticed the time pass so quickly, that he’d even enjoyed himself. The thought perplexed him just as much as it terrified him, equal parts a pleasant surprise and an unwelcome revelation.

Followed only by the sound of night-time insects, Jae-ha found himself heading straight to his small dwelling atop the jewellery shop on Hiryuu Street. He did not stop for a drink at the Dragon Claw, the thought having not even once manifested itself.

That night, he fell asleep with the smell of tulip and dewberry clinging to his skin. In his dreams, he saw skies as blue as eyes of sapphire gems and waters as smooth as soft velvet lips. Once he’d awoken, he’d known — this would be his doom, his undoing. Getting so close meant getting burned, but like a phoenix, desire could burn forever and rise again. He, too, could yearn until he’d burned himself out or someone else had stifled the flames by force.

Perhaps it wasn’t entirely hopeless, Jae-ha thought on that second day.

He’d just taken a scrap piece of paper and a pen to start laying out different combinations. That was when he noticed that every time he was in the house, working on the safe, Kija was always there, reading his book and on some occasions, looking at Jae-ha when he thought Jae-ha wouldn’t notice, even though the metal wall was so reflective that it was every bit a mirror.

“Are you here to make sure I don’t steal anything?” Jae-ha asked playfully some time after lunch-hour.

“Perhaps I want to watch you work. Does it bother you?”

Jae-ha smiled to himself. “On the contrary, I quite like having you watch me work.”

He looked back long enough to enjoy the pretty colour of the blush across Kija’s face. He could be wrong, of course. This could all very well be another figment of his imagination and Kija’s reactions barely those of a shy man. Or perhaps Jae-ha was just far too vulgar for the likes of the refined and well-mannered merchants of Kuuto.

But then Kija looked up at him as if he knew, the blue of his eyes suddenly in sparks. Didn’t they say a fire was most dangerous when its flames went from red all the way to blue?

“Are all thieves so sure of themselves?” the boy asked.

“Could be.” Jae-ha shrugged. “Or maybe you’ve just lucked in on the odd one out.”

Kija placed his book down in his lap. “Fine, it’s clear that you’re good at what you do, but how good exactly? Is there a lock you’ve not been able to pick?”

“Can’t say there is,” Jae-ha answered truthfully.

“How do you do it then?”

What an odd question to be asked by someone who’d never understand.

“Some take the brute’s way,” the thief said, “but I prefer a gentler approach. Treat a lock too harshly and, like the heart, it too would splinter. But tap it too lightly and it’d not open for you, for it shies away from a lack of passion. The key lies halfway.”

“Do you always speak in metaphors?”

“That is no metaphor, I assure you. It’s a lesson from experience.”

“And what experience might that be?” Kija asked, voice a pitch too low.

Jae-ha held his gaze then. He wasn’t sure where this was going — or rather, with anyone else, he knew exactly where this could go, but with Kija, there was no way to tell. For Jae-ha, none of this was new, the remarks and the innuendo all too familiar. But was Kija aware of the game they were playing, the little dance between them? Were his steps deliberate or was he hitting these little keys on accident?

It would seem that Jae-ha would just have to see. He could play the long game. Throw a hook, wait if Kija’d bite. He could drive himself to the abyss and back if he’d have to; Jae-ha had done it all before.

“A lock,” he said, “is a delicate thing. It’s like a lover, you see. You need the right touch in the right place, at the right moment.”

There was silence — silence and tension, the latter of which seemed to be a near-palpable force. Kija hid into the comfort of his book, though he must have already known that he’d find neither his words there, nor his courage.

“I’ve never heard of a gentle thief before,” he said finally.

“No one has.” Jae-ha turned back to the vault. “A gentle thief would burn once and perish, but a gentle lover burns a thousand times and still returns. That, Junior, is the difference between those that make it out alive in this world and those who don’t.”

“What is?”

Jae-ha felt something in his chest clench. “That to survive, you’ve got to be prepared to burn until the flames can no longer hurt you.”

The boy went silent and the day went on, but Jae-ha had lied, hadn’t he? Because the flames had not stopped hurting and never would — he’d simply learned to like the way they burned, just sparks across the skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this chapter! Next Wednesday, we'll definitely have some exciting revelations and we'll be getting right into that romantic content which we're actually here for, after all. Stay tuned and have a fantastic week! ;)


	3. One’s Pride, Another’s Prejudice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, dear Reader, to a quite heated new chapter! I really hope you enjoy this one — it was quite fun to write!
> 
> As always, if you have any thoughts you might wanna leave in the comments, I'd be beyond happy to hear them! :)

It was dawn on the third day since his work on the Hakuryuu’s vault had begun. Already, Jae-ha sat waiting by the barrels of the travellers’ market, this time before any of the crew members.

Mornings were still cold this early into spring and Jae-ha wrapped his long coat tightly around his shoulders, bunched up the fabric around his waist. He was used to the clouds of soot and dust which buried the blue of Kuuto’s sky, used to seeing the sun barely ever shine in full — maybe only a peek here, a snippet there. But he awaited with great euphoria the hour when he’d find himself in front of the Hakuryuu house’s gardens. Where the scent of tulip and dewberry would engulf him in warmth.

It had been nearly a quarter of an hour more until Jae-ha saw silhouettes approaching and waved at the crew. It was much too early to exchange pleasantries, though Jae-ha did anyway as he knew how little desire Rowen and Maya held for such formalities. Jae-ha always enjoyed starting his days with a little jest, a friendly jab — at someone else’s expense, not his. Of course.

After a few minutes of watching Rowen debate whether he shouldn’t just turn back around and leave, Jae-ha smiled and decided enough was enough. He’d get his kick out of a whole day with Kija anyway.

“Right, tell me then,” the thief said. “What did you find out?”

Maya, who’d been tossing an apple around for most of the prior conversation, now finally stopped. “The servants at the Hakuryuu estate are paid well enough that they don’t need bribes.”

Jae-ha scoffed. What was with everyone saying that the staff was paid well enough? First Kija, now Maya. Didn’t they understand by now that greed was strong enough to override any semblance of loyalty?

“No one _needs_ bribes but everyone likes them anyway. Up the price.”

“I did,” said Maya in his defence, “and all I got were rumours that some man was nearly thrown out of the window of Junior’s chambers.”

“Really?” asked Jae-ha, incredulous.

Toku clicked his tongue. “Well, I heard Junior got caught in a romp with one of the help.”

“And _I_ heard the cook got fired recently,” Tatsu chipped in, “or he’d not be working for the Oiryuu house now. Something about his son getting into trouble with Junior and the Councilman.”

Were they really talking about the same shy, touch-him-and-he’d-blush Kija? Jae-ha could only stare from face to face, dumbfounded. He wasn’t known to be easily taken by surprise but this — all of it — was news to him.

Maya nodded. “Put two and two together and you’ve got yourself a solid guess what happened.”

“Could be a coincidence?” Jae-ha mused.

Rowen gave him a hard look. “Thought ye ain’t believing in no coincidences.”

That was it — Jae-ha didn’t, but yesterday he’d also told Kija he didn’t believe in fate either. Was there anything left between coincidence and fate? Jae-ha was confused. Kija was making him believe in all sorts of foolish things. He’d meddled with his brain, usually so practical and pragmatic, and had muddled it up with talks of fate and other fairytale-like nonsense that Jae-ha had never once believed in.

“All I’m saying is that he doesn’t look the type,” Jae-ha said.

“Why? Because he’s the son of a merchant?” Maya asked. “Jae-ha, please, he’s probably one of those spoiled brats who think they can have everything for the right price. They don’t care who they drag down with them.”

Jae-ha wanted to say that wasn’t true, but he hadn’t the grounds to say so with certainty and so didn’t bother with an answer.

He had, of course, heard of male inverts. By all meanings of the word, he’d suppose himself one too, though he’d cared very little in the past whether he’d be shagging a woman or a man, much less what that made him. Labels like that had never fit him. Very little mattered when you were a thief — as long as you were good at stealing, no one cared what got you hard. Sometimes, Jae-ha liked the soft bounce of a woman’s breasts, other times he enjoyed the hard rings of muscle on a man’s body. He didn’t care who was in his bed, he loved the rush all the same.

But Kija, with the cook’s son? With another _man_? That was very different. Sodomy between men was punishable by the crown’s law, even if Kija were a Councilman himself. No one cared if a criminal laid other men in his bed, but if you were the son of a merchant of higher standing, suddenly the whole city would be craving to hear, to see as officials were sent to apprehend the culprits. It would explain why it was a secret worth keeping, certainly a scandal waiting to happen. Being written out of the Hakuryuu legacy suddenly seemed no surprise.

_Hidden depths_ , Jae-ha thought as he made his way up the hill leading to the Hakuryuu estate.

It was hard to imagine, shy, well-mannered, blushing Kija in the arms of a man. And yet, the image of Kija under Jae-ha came crystal-clear, as if Kija could only ever truly be held by one’s arms, those being Jae-ha’s. Such thoughts were dangerous, he knew. They’d been dangerous an hour ago when he’d not known that they could be true, but they were like a wall rigged with explosives now that he did.

It had been easy yesterday — teasing Junior, cornering him with Jae-ha’s words until the blush had been forced to rise against his pale skin. But it had been easy precisely because it had not been true. It had been another of Jae-ha’s games, the ones he liked to play where he would let himself get too close to the flames so he could enjoy their burn. He’d expected nothing, hoped for nothing. Jae-ha had simply found a quick rush, for the week. Yesterday, it had been Kija. The week after? Somebody else. Or so he’d thought, safe in his assumption that the boy would never care less for the tease, only for the embarrassment of having to stand and take it. 

By the time Jae-ha entered Hakuryuu manor and found Kija already waiting for him in one of the study’s armchairs, just like the day before, he was already wary. He told himself to be careful. Not to go looking for something that could spiral out of his control.

But then Kija had to look up and smile, the soft spring breeze coming through the window had to blow in the smell of tulip and dewberry, and Jae-ha realised just how dangerous his fascination with this young man really was. It had been dangerous yesterday already, when he’d fallen asleep to the smell of gardens and the colour of those eyes like ocean waves. Now, as Kija held his gaze — this morning with confidence and something else, something like mischief — that blue rocked him against the rocky shores, pushing him overboard. 

“As per your request,” Kija said, evidently chipper at Jae-ha’s arrival, “I’ve had the cooks prepare scones for us.”

It would have been so much easier if Kija would just not be there or willing to be so nice. “My stomach doesn’t take well to raisins,” Jae-ha lied automatically.

Kija looked at him as if he was daft. “Well, fortunately for your refined palette, we don’t make them with raisins on this side of Kuuto.”

To the fiery depths of hell with all of this. Jae-ha truly might be daft.

“What is the agenda like today?” Kija asked as Jae-ha left his coat where he always did, against the back of the armchair — and since when had _thrice_ become _always_ in his mind?

“Continue trying out different switch combinations, I suppose,” said Jae-ha, holding up the list of trials and errors from yesterday’s work. “I’m only about a quarter of the way through but I might finish either today or tomorrow the latest.”

“Excellent.”

Yes, excellent indeed. The sooner he was done, the sooner he’d be able to flee this house and the awfully tempting being that was Hakuryuu Junior.

Jae-ha needed to be careful. He couldn’t let himself get carried away like he had yesterday, like he usually did. The small hints, the innuendo, he’d have to halt them, put out the flames at the heart of the fire before they’d reached the forest. But why? Why be so afraid now that he’d received confirmation for what he’d suspected all along? Hoped to be true, even?

The answer came simple: _because he and I are not the same_. They lived different lives, in different worlds, and wanted very different things.

What Jae-ha wanted was a partner in crime, someone who could follow him to the depths of the dark abyss that was life. So far, he’d only found such a partner in money and if he were to never find another, then so be it. What Kija wanted was not clear to Jae-ha immediately but he knew that it was not one and the same. Perhaps, Kija was just rebelling — a spoiled child, as Maya had said, wanting to disrupt the peace that had been artificially created around him. Jae-ha hadn’t the time or patience to be someone’s fling. His pride would not allow him to be someone meant for shock value. Most of all, his heart would not take the hit.

It didn’t help that Kija had suddenly become so very talkative, as if the night had given him courage that Jae-ha wished so very much to exploit and guide to his pleasure but could not, _should_ not. Would he anyway?

“I was thinking,” Kija began in such a playful voice that Jae-ha immediately knew that what he was thinking would lead to nothing good. “Since you’ve made such steady progress, why don’t we have our afternoon break in the gardens today?”

Oh, how Jae-ha would have loved that. “I’d rather not. I burn easily, never tan.”

Kija laughed, the sound as gentle as a bird’s soft chirp. “Please, humour me. I know you like the gardens, I’ve seen you looking at them.”

_Why don’t you just come out and say that you’ve seen me looking at you, too_ , Jae-ha thought solemnly. Instead, he said, “Fine then, but just for a short while.”

How badly could it go?

But as Jae-ha had experienced many a time, and never made a habit of learning, he could imagine the worst probable scenario to a heist and reality would still manage to prove that his imagination was not enough to grasp exactly how bad things would go. 

For most of the day, Jae-ha decided to settle next to the vault and make progress with the combination-guessing. He’d only look between the piece of parchment where he wrote down the combinations and the safe. If he sometimes glanced at Kija through the reflection, it was out of a lapse of control and he was quick to make amends by moving onto the next combination. Kija made little effort to converse, thankfully, though the corners of his mouth were set in a permanent soft smile. Jae-ha wished to think the boy was simply reading a rather good book, but he was no fool.

When the time for their afternoon break came, Kija was quick to announce it, pointing to the old grandfather clock tucked at the other end of the study. He led them down the spiralling mahogany staircase and through the back of the house, where the gardens lay in wait for them.

“Isn’t it breathtaking?” Kija asked, the question almost rhetorical, as they stepped outside and the light began its warm dance across their skin.

Jae-ha had always appreciated beauty when he’d seen it. He knew a beautiful jewel when he saw one, a beautiful necklace so he could steal it, a beautiful lover so he could keep them through the night and early morning. But for all the beauty he’d seen, the gardens at this hour, as the sun cast rays as if of pure gold upon the ground, were a marvel. They were a vision of another world almost, one Jae-ha had known very little about before.

Leaves brushed up against Jae-ha’s ankles and some even further up his calves, their touches soft and tingly. The blades of grass, as he looked down, were a spectacular golden-green that glistened under the sun and shivered against the soft wind. Flowers bloomed open, in red and orange, and blue and white, some like fire, others like ice. Jae-ha had nearly forgotten colours like these existed, having only known the dull grey of Kuuto’s inner streets. Towards the centre of the garden, pollen and small flies circled between flower buds, suspended in mid-air like a mist, a cloud of perfume sparkling against the rays. It was an overwhelming sensation, this scent of flowers and berries, once the winds blew towards him. It came stronger than ever before, having fermented under the pleasant burn of the sun. 

If there truly was anything beyond beauty, Jae-ha could see it now in the burst of colour and the golden highlights cascading from the sky. He could smell it in the sweet aroma of dewberry. Could hear it in the song of the birds and the rustle of the grass as the two men approached a small table farther down the garden path, with a tea set and a pair of chairs already prepared for them. 

“If I’d known you’d react like this, I’d have brought you here days ago,” Kija said, his voice so close and yet suddenly so foreign.

Jae-ha turned to see the other man watching him. “I’ve not said anything.”

“No,” Kija agreed, “but your expression tells me more than words ever would.”

The thief offered no response. He could not think of anything to say that would not sound out of place. Almost as if the world would notice this was not where he belonged and deny him entry as soon as he opened his mouth to speak.

A soft breeze swept down at the gardens and playfully lashed at Jae-ha’s hair, the way it was neatly gathered and held together by a silken ribbon at the back of his head. The two men reached the table and adjusted their seats so they had their backs to the house. Jae-ha didn’t want to see the Hakuryuu manor; he wanted to bask in the fantasy that they were somewhere far away from Kuuto, some place where nothing existed besides the perfect view of the garden and where it bled into the meadow at the hillside.

Jae-ha could still feel Kija’s eyes on him. On his neck, on his cheeks, as if the boy’s gaze was akin to sunlight and its warmth could be felt as it swept the lines of Jae-ha’s face.

“Do you come to read here often?” the thief asked — out of pure courtesy, he told himself. With the corner of his eyes, he saw Kija smile and turned towards him like a sunflower to light.

“Everyday actually. I don’t like the house much but I love the gardens.” Junior laughed. “Well, besides the insects, I suppose.”

“But you do know there are rather many of them here, right?”

Jae-ha could swear Kija turned a shade paler. “I’d rather not think of it like that.”

The thief smiled and settled comfortably with his back against the chair, tipping his head up towards the sky and the heavens, which if real, must look something like this garden. He closed his eyes, the darkness against his eyelids now a shade of warm red. This was nice, he could admit. Perhaps, it could even be harmless.

But he should have known that nothing was ever just what it appeared to be with Kija. At first, when the boy began talking, it was no more than small talk — pleasant and impersonal enough. At another glance, it was already leading to something Jae-ha allowed very little for: familiarity.

“What are you going to do once you have your million?” Kija asked, his voice shrouded half in expectation, half in reluctance to ask.

Already, Jae-ha didn’t like the question. He hardly knew the answer himself.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “Pay off my debts to begin with, I suppose. After that, who knows?”

Kija was quiet for a moment but Jae-ha could sense that he was budding to ask more. Finally, he said: “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you only want the money for the sake of having it.”

But nothing in Kija’s tone suggested that he thought otherwise and so Jae-ha geared up for a challenge, “If we find that your father has money in his safe, would you take it?”

“No, only the paintings.”

“Then consider that perhaps I’m not used to having your sense of luxury,” Jae-ha said, feeling himself growing cold.

“Or perhaps you’ve been looking at it all wrong and money’s not as important as you hold it to be.”

The thief opened his eyes, the light suddenly blinding, and cast a sideways glance towards the boy. “And how would you know that when you’ve grown up so comfortably? You’ve never had reason to go out on the streets and look for food.”

“It’s because I’ve grown up comfortably that I know there’s a line between comfort and squander that mustn’t be crossed.”

“Money is what brings bread to the table and a roof over your head,” Jae-ha said as he turned to face Kija in full. “If you’ve not had to fight for it, you can’t argue against its importance.”

“To an extent, yes, money is necessary,” the boy argued anyway. “But anything beyond that is no more than a charade.”

“A charade, you say. Do you also think becoming a thief has been by my own choice then?” Jae-ha asked, his tone dangerous.

But Kija was quickly proving himself to be an equal to Jae-ha’s temper. “Well, it is no servitude, seeing as you certainly seem to be enjoying it.”

“What does a boy like you know about servitude?”

“I’m in thrall to this house.”

“Please, as if you don’t have anything and anyone at your beck and call. Don’t be so entitled.”

“You’re no better.”

Jae-ha blinked. “Pardon?”

“You sit there and think how pampered I must be for squandering a fortune when you have done the same,” Kija said. “I know you were born under the merchant crest of the Ryokuryuu estate, despite how much you seem to claim you were born on Kuuto’s streets.” 

The recoil that Jae-ha felt at those words was nearly a physical thing. “How do you know about that?”

“It doesn’t matter _how_. What matters is that you could have easily become a merchant. You could have made a name for yourself and built an empire just like the rest of them. All they do is lie, cheat, and steal. You would have excelled at their own game but you chose to throw it all away instead.”

Jae-ha felt anger rise inside of him, not for the assumptions but for the truths that he could not deny. 

“You dye your hair with the same greens from Kaitei that the Ryokuryuu Councilman uses and dress in expensive purple silks like he does. Is that not your way of taunting him?”

Kija had no right. This boy who had grown up so starkly different from Jae-ha, this boy who wasn’t supposed to know anything — he had no right knowing this much.

“Are you quite done?” Jae-ha asked. “Don’t pretend that you know anything about me.”

“Then do not talk as though you know all about _me_ ,” Kija retorted.

“You’re a merchant’s son, Junior. That’s all I need to know about you.”

The tension in the air now coiled around the two men, buzzing like rattlesnakes seconds before their attack. Jae-ha hadn’t realised when, but at some point, both of them had stood up, their cups and sense of lethargic comfort abandoned. Now, they stood facing each other and Jae-ha felt that his words had done damage. It was written across Kija’s face, in the lines across his forehead and the sorrowful tilt of his eyes.

“I am not my father, Jae-ha, and you’d do well to remember that,” Kija said carefully. “You make assumptions about my character and judge me for them. You’re surprised when I prove them wrong and yet you still continue to doubt me.” 

“Is it an apology that you want?” the thief asked. “Or a pat on the shoulder?”

Kija frowned. “I only want that you look at me for the person I am, not the person you assume me to be.”

Jae-ha stilled, having not expected that answer. “Why would it matter how I look at you?” he said in a low voice.

“Because you’re wrong. When you refuse to bend to merchants’ money, you call it an act of defiance,” Kija replied. “When I do the same, you call it a luxury.”

The prejudice and years of accumulated disdain for the merchants’ families, had Jae-ha really projected it all onto this boy? Of course, he had. He’d even done it on purpose — to make him unattainable, as long as it meant Jae-ha would not want to have him.

“What is it then?”

“Retribution for all which I have been denied, Jae-ha. I am taking back the freedom I am due, even if it means starting from the ground-up, and I shan’t accept a single dime of my father’s, stolen or otherwise.”

The thief took a moment to collect his thoughts. He’d never been one to think much before he acted, but this was different. This wasn’t something he could solve by drawing his knives or fleeing. It wasn’t about fighting back.

Kija looked at him almost as if in disappointment. “I thought you, of all people, would have understood that.”

“Why?” Jae-ha asked. “Why is my opinion important?”

“Because when you came for the Li-Tao five years ago, you were all I wanted to be.”

Jae-ha remembered the strong-willed boy with the blue eyes, barely fifteen of age, that had allowed a thief into their home without a thought to scream or be afraid. Back then and now, too, Kija seemed like someone unattainable — skin so delicate it looked like it would bruise if Jae-ha dared breathe too hard on it, eyes always a bit wide as if in constant amazement of the world. Like someone who’d fallen into the wrong story, a prince locked up in his castle.

The thief had remembered that boy and cast the memory aside to hide the truth: that Kija had been unexpected, unexplainable. That Jae-ha had never met anyone quite like him and felt greedy for something that had no name. That once they’d met again, merely three days ago, he’d felt the tug of something more, something that came to life in the curious tilt of Kija’s brows, the red of his blush, the curve of his lips.

“I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again,” replied Jae-ha, “I’m just a thief. Nothing more, nothing less. Whoever you thought I was, I can assure you I am not.”

“But you’re a man of your own free will.”

“As are you.”

Kija shook his head, nipped at his lower lip with his teeth. “I have been nothing but a man of fear.”

The sweet scent of tulips and dewberry threatened to engulf Jae-ha. The aroma that wafted in the air was so unmistakably Kija’s. It was a dangerous thing and did foolish things to Jae-ha, made him wish he could have bottled the scent and gotten drunk on it. 

“What are you so afraid of?” Jae-ha asked gently. 

“Wanting what I cannot have,” the boy replied.

They were so close now, each having advanced in the heat of the battle between their words. And yet, for all his frustrations and earlier inhibitions, Jae-ha found himself wanting to close the space between them even more. To hell with being careful, to hell with not getting burned. He could set fire to his heart a thousand times over and still, it’d beat just as loudly as it did right now.

“Then tell me, what is it that you want?” 

All around him, the aroma made his brain sing: _Kija, Kija, Kija_. The afternoon sun cast sparks of gold across the boy’s angelic face as Jae-ha watched his expression, until then as though prepared for war, nearly crumble. 

“I want to leave and not look back. I want to see all the places I’ve not been to before, and live the way I’ve only read about in books,” he said. “I want to just exist, Jae-ha. I want to exist like it’s my right to, not my punishment.”

Jae-ha brushed a lock of hair, white as snow, away from Kija’s cheek. He was standing close enough to hear the exact moment when the boy’s breath hitched. Then, Kija was turning his head towards the touch, welcoming it.

“And I want to kiss you,” the boy whispered. “Even if it’s just this once, I want to kiss you for all the times I’ve yearned to before.”

His eyes were full of passion, alight with its flames. But passion without discipline or direction was no more than a child’s tantrum. Jae-ha had to know that Kija was more than that, more than just the boy he’d been five years ago.

“Then why don’t you?” Jae-ha challenged. “If you want something, you must take it.”

Kija’s gaze moved from Jae-ha’s eyes down to his lips, where it settled, hungrily. “You’re the thief, not I.”

Jae-ha smiled. He withdrew his hand from the boy’s cheek and let it settle beneath Kija’s chin, where he rubbed soft circles against the skin with his thumb. Gently, he tipped Kija’s face upward until the boy was forced to look him in the eye.

“Then what are you?” the thief asked. “Are you a man of your words or are you just his shadow?”

There was a brief pause and in it, a flash of the future. Jae-ha knew they’d reached the point of no return. The words struck Kija exactly where Jae-ha had aimed his arrow. He felt himself be pulled down, Kija’s hands fisted into the lapels of Jae-ha’s waistcoat. Under other circumstances, he’d have laughed at the sudden temper. But right now, all he could do was pray that their lips would meet, for he knew his heart might cease to beat if they did not.

Kija’s breath came hot on Jae-ha’s mouth — just a moment away, like the sun waiting to peak at the gates of the horizon. And as one’s lips met the other’s, the heat spread from where they connected to Jae-ha’s face and neck, past the hem of his shirt. He’d never felt heat like this before, an all-new kind of fire that unfurled him not in flames, but in cracks of lightning. Across his skin, sparks surged as the two men’s lips fit together in a dance, two pieces to a single puzzle.

The kiss began as a soft whisper, a ghost’s touch. Almost as if the two men were uncertain whether the magic spell that bound them would hold.

But then Kija caught Jae-ha’s lip with his teeth, gently at first, taking nips. A dash of lightning. Jae-ha felt himself rise to the challenge, felt the sweet taste of Kija’s lips with his tongue as he stole the breath from the boy’s mouth and claimed it as his own. Another pierce of lightning, this one rattling. Jae-ha sensed the heat spread across his chest, dart past his belt.

No longer a whisper, the kiss had become an assault, a fight for dominance that sent Jae-ha’s world spinning, his brain suddenly short of air. He held the younger man by the waist — whether to steady Kija or himself, he did not know. All he knew was that if he were to let go, the storm would claim him. Kija’s hands were circling around his back now, almost as if he was so starved for touch that he was scrambling to find purchase. The path of his palms set off sparks across Jae-ha’s skin through the layers of his shirt and waistcoat. Finally, perhaps satisfied or maybe even more desperate for anchor, Kija’s hands settled for the exposed skin on Jae-ha’s neck. 

Once the two pulled apart to catch their breaths, Jae-ha could almost taste dewberries on his tongue. The men remained in each other’s arms, feasting upon the moment of bliss that was the present. This close now, Jae-ha could count the freckles across Kija’s cheek, like a stargazer’s map to the night sky. The boy’s hair curtained his shoulders, glistening like a waterfall’s silver streams, and Jae-ha’s hand moved to touch it, to tangle his fingers around it.

_It is impossible_ , thought Jae-ha, _to be so close to someone and yet feel like you aren’t nearly close enough_.

“The house?” Kija said, flushed as though he’d just ran a mile. “My room.”

Jae-ha murmured an agreement — his reply more a sigh than a word. And so, the thief who always had a clever response to every threat had suddenly found himself reduced to single-syllable sounds. He let himself release Kija, though all he wanted was to stay like this forever, in the warmth of the sun and the heat of Kija’s arms.

The two stumbled across the gardens, Kija’s soft laugh joined by the buzz of the late afternoon crickets’ chorus. They flew through the open doors, through the hallways, up the staircase as though they could not get upstairs fast enough. Giddy on delight, Jae-ha let Kija take his arm and lead him into his room. Usually, this was when, with anyone else, Jae-ha would be invited to their chambers for the first time, but he and Kija had started everything rather backwards, hadn’t they?

Jae-ha closed the door with his back, the weight of Kija’s tight body pushing him to lean against it. Lips came crashing on his again, like tidal waves splashing against the rocks. _Insatiable_ , Jae-ha thought of the way Kija’s mouth claimed his. This was not the boy who’d blushed at his remarks yesterday. No, this was the man who’d restrained his passion so he could unleash it now — in all of its heat and glory — and he was just as magnificent as he was beautiful.

Letting Kija set his demands was different, it was unexpected and it was arousing. Jae-ha felt himself tugged forward, toward the bed, and pulled down on top of Kija as the younger man lay onto the sheets. 

“You take my breath away,” Jae-ha found himself saying. “Every time I look at you, it’s not enough.”

Kija smiled, the sight making Jae-ha’s heart miss its next beat. “I’m afraid sheer flattery wouldn’t get you very far.”

“It got me in your bed, didn’t it?” joked the thief.

“If you call whatever just happened outside flattery, then I will be very concerned.”

Jae-ha leaned down to place a kiss upon the other’s forehead. “I’m not usually this argumentative, I promise.”

“I am,” said Kija.

“Good.” Next, Jae-ha moved to lay a kiss upon his lips. “I like it when you’re stubborn.”

But before their mouths could meet, Kija pushed his head back against the pillow and exposed his pale, slender neck to Jae-ha’s eyes. As if begging for Jae-ha’s touch there, for the wet trail of his kisses and the sweet flashes of euphoria as Jae-ha nibbled on the flesh and pulled it between his lips.

Jae-ha could let Kija lead this dance. He could let the other man decide when, and where, and how until he’d burned himself out, until his confidence had shifted. And then, only then, would Jae-ha take over. He was waiting his turn, pliable to clench Kija’s thirst, but only for now, only for this time. He could let Kija have his victory, taste what it felt like to have Jae-ha listen and comply but he’d learn later. Oh, he’d learn how it felt to see Jae-ha where he was unmatched, to feel his fingers and his tongue, and his hunger.

But that could wait. Tonight, Kija would be getting what he himself would ask for. Anything, anything at all.

Feeling Kija’s fingers at his waistcoat’s buttons, Jae-ha rose up and peeled both the garment and his shirt off, tossed them to the side. When he looked back down, he saw the way Kija’s eyes had lidded in delight and lust, recognised the hunger in his gaze, mirroring his own. Like sparks across his skin, he felt Kija’s fingers lay upon his chest and linger at old scars.

“I’d never thought I’d get to touch you like this,” Kija whispered, almost as if intending not to be heard.

Jae-ha hummed pleasantly. “Why not?”

“Because you’re Jae-ha,” said the boy, “the most famous thief in Kuuto. Nobody can catch you. Nobody can have you to themselves.”

But instead of answering right away, the thief took Kija’s hand in his and pressed it to his chest, guided it to the spot just above where his heart beat faster than it had ever done before.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he said. “That this heart beats for you right now, only for you. It cannot be bought. It has chosen to give itself to you for nothing in return.”

The boy rose to his elbows then, face to face with Jae-ha, and brushed their lips together. Gently, softly, like the song of the night birds that called for dusk at the window. Kija’s hand remained just above the thief’s heart, Jae-ha’s palm on top and pressed between both their chests. The boy must have felt how Jae-ha’s heart lurched forward at the sweet press of their lips, at the tender way Kija’s mouth claimed his. He must have known then, known just how easily that heart could shatter if they were to stop right then and there.

Kija moved to unbutton his white waistcoat, Jae-ha’s eager fingers joining his efforts. Once the garment was off and his shirt hung unbuttoned, Jae-ha was quick to brush the tips of his fingers against the exposed skin, white like milk and untouched by sunrays. He leaned forward, ran his tongue against Kija’s nipple, took it between his lips and nipped at it with his teeth. Kija groaned — a sound Jae-ha felt rather than heard as it rippled across his body and caused shivers across Kija’s skin.

For all that Jae-ha still referred to the other as a boy, Kija’s body was that of a man — hard pieces of corded muscle, lines as sharp as a blade’s edge, skin blooming red, hot and eager to be roamed free. Absently, Jae-ha wondered whether Kija would want to push him down and ride him into the bed or whether he burned to be held down, bracketed between Jae-ha’s thighs and writhing under him in pleasure, fists into the sheets.

He’d just have to find out. Let Kija set the pace and tone, let him lead today and be overwhelmed tomorrow.

Voices boomed in from downstairs but Jae-ha paid them no mind. He continued his exploration of Kija’s skin, laying wet kisses and burning trails as he moved to take his jaw, strong and so sharp he could cut himself on its edge. He felt Kija draw in a sudden breath. Jae-ha smiled against his skin, moved to kiss his ear, sucked at the tender flesh of his lobe with his lips, pulled it with his teeth. There was a gasp. Against his arms, he felt Kija arch his back.

Suddenly, loud footsteps came on the other side of the bedroom door, across the corridor. Jae-ha stilled; Kija shivered in his embrace. A door opened and then fell shut.

“The study,” whispered Kija, his breathing ragged and his tone hitched.

Jae-ha pulled back, just enough to see the other man’s face. “I thought your father doesn’t come in until late.”

“Usually,” Kija said. “He must have invited guests for dinner or he’d not be back so early. He’d probably want me in attendance.”

Jae-ha felt the boy slacken in his arms and lean with his forehead against his shoulder. The thief didn’t want to let go, not tonight and not anytime after too. Not after they’d just allowed themselves to be free like this. They’d shed their fear like clothing but this wasn’t about fear, not really.

“I despise that man for a great many things but ruining this is by far the worst crime he’s done to me.”

Gently, Jae-ha pulled the other man back and kissed his forehead. “I know, it’s alright.”

“Can we stay like this for a minute more,” Kija asked, “until you have to go?”

Jae-ha did not answer, he simply tightened his arms around him. Anything, he’d told himself already. He’d do anything to keep this fire. Today, he would go, he’d not wage war. But tomorrow, after he’d cracked that damned vault, he would offer Kija the retribution he wanted. Tomorrow, he would offer all of that and something more. A life outside of this room, this house. He’d offer to give Kija the life he wanted, if only he wanted them to share it together. For now, let there be peace tonight.

After a long moment, Kija straightened himself up enough to level his face against Jae-ha’s and pulled him in for a languid kiss. Jae-ha could taste Kija’s reluctance to let him go on his lips, could taste the desire to keep him there on his tongue. 

“Take the window,” Kija said after, then smiled. “You’ve made quite a habit of using it anyway.”

Jae-ha stood, tugged his shirt and waistcoat back on, though he didn’t bother with their buttons. He laced the ribbon that bound his hair again, pulling back the locks that had escaped in disarray from where Kija’s fingers had been clutching tightly. At the sill, he beckoned Kija forward and kissed him one last time.

“Until tomorrow, my love,” Jae-ha said and disappeared into the night, just a thief returning to the shadows that would always welcome him as their son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only reason why I wanted to write this fic was because I wanted Jae-ha and Kija to have this argument. That's it, really. What can I say? I do enjoy the occasional heated argument between two characters that leads to a heated make-out session — it's one of my favourite tropes and though it might be trite, I still enjoy it! Hope you did too!
> 
> On a side note, them gardens looked really good in my head, but my spring allergies are so intense that I wanted to sneeze just writing that segment. Might have seemed romantic and all but if either of our boys had an allergy to pollen, disaster would have ensued
> 
> Next Wednesday, it's going to be the final chapter of Thief for Hire! I'm excited because we'll be having a wee angsty moment (just a dash, I assure you!), a few steamy moments, and quite a few cute ones, too! So stay tuned! Thank you for reading, have a lovely week and until next time! :)


	4. Love Is a Heart-Shaped Lock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome, dearest Reader, to the final chapter of 'Thief for Hire'. This story has been my favourite experiment of all the JaeKi fics I've written so I hope I've managed to turn it into something you, too, have enjoyed reading! I have a few concluding remarks in the end-notes concerning any future JaeKis if you wanna check that out, too
> 
> I hope you enjoy this final chapter! As always, I'd love to read your thoughts in the comments! :)
> 
> (NSFW Warning: Explicit Sexual Content)

The smell of smoke billowing from the factory chimneys had always reminded Jae-ha of the Ryokuryuu estate. Soot and dust had coated his lungs as a child, when he’d been sentenced to life inside the house on 14th Street — closest to the industrial yard so the Ryokuryuu Councilman would waste no time in going back and forth to subdue the rioting workers. Though Jae-ha had left that life behind long ago, memories of it would come full-force as soon as the factories opened up before dawn and smoke began to swell out towards the skies.

In a way, the streets of Kuuto were Jae-ha’s prison. He was thrust in an endless loop of remembering the regrets of his past, from dawn to dusk, and he was expected to endure it for as long as he lived in this wretched city.

He’d thought of leaving Kuuto, of course. Once and for all. He could pack the little he cared enough to keep and go, without a single look behind his shoulder. And yet, it always seemed an impossibility — this thought of leaving the only place where Jae-ha had made a name for himself. The place where he’d written his initials in blood and carved his resolve into his enemies’ memory with daggers. Where others had tried to spell out their threats across his chest with bullets and he’d evaded them all as if this were but a slow-dance. No, Jae-ha had long since accepted that he’d remain in Kuuto and demand the whole forsaken city see him as its king. Ruler amongst thieves and a god amongst men. It had been his dream, his ambition. Before he’d crossed the foyer of the Hakuryuu mansion, before he’d claimed Kija’s lips and found his heart beating for their taste.

Once, when Jae-ha had still been part of the décor in the Ryokuryuu estate, life had been different. He’d not known much about theft, but he’d known all about servitude. Back then, he’d been just a prince locked up in a castle, just like Kija too.

Garou, the Ryokuryuu Councilman, hadn’t married; he’d had no heir to the empire which he’d someday be leaving behind. But there had been Jae-ha, the bastard son of one of Garou’s many mistresses and though their relationship hadn’t been one of blood, Garou had claimed him as his successor anyway. Jae-ha had obeyed, for a while. He’d been told he’d grow up to burn crowns to keep him nice and warm, to even go so far as to pay someone to burn his crowns for him. He’d suffered through the lessons on proper etiquette, the language tutors, and the rules. He’d done it all so his mother would feel safe, protected, so she wouldn’t have to go on the street looking for a job.

But Jae-ha had been young and he’d been a fool. He’d learned, of course, but lessons like that could only be taught through experience first.

The day that Jae-ha’s mother had collapsed, sick after working the nadai in the silos, Jae-ha had packed his things. He’d taken the cook’s butcher knife and threatened everyone who’d dared try and stop him. He’d set fire to the silos and camped under a bridge that first night, cold and shivering. But he’d grown strong. He’d grown up to become a collection of hard lines and tailored edges, sharp like his knives and deadly like his intent. Kuuto’s streets had welcomed him as their son and though he’d had to fight for his place on them, he’d soon found himself a permanent home there. Jae-ha had learned to trade in information. That the things men did when they thought no one was looking were the most valuable currency — that shame held more value than coin ever could.

Was this why he’d been so hard on Kija? Because he’d seen the helpless boy that Jae-ha had once been and would have grown up to be, had he not felt rage engulf him and drown out any fear?

The last day of work on the Hakuryuu vault was a stone-grey one, the sky a bleak slate pleated with thick ripples of cloud. Hard wind brought the exhaust fumes of the factories upon the town instead of whisking them away. Jae-ha had come to know that winds like that, in Kuuto, heralded disaster. It would seem silly, but his instincts had always been right before and today, with the sky looking near-black, the storm seemed to be only just beginning its descent upon the city.

Jae-ha hurried his pace towards the Hakuryuu estate. Already, he knew something was wrong as soon as he crossed the house’s front door.

He knew it when he saw the same lackeys who’d brought him that first night look at him, then quickly turn away. Knew it when he went inside the study to find it empty, a single note left by the armchair where Kija usually sat. Next to it, Jae-ha saw the purple coat he’d forgotten yesterday in his rush to leave the house. Already, his heart was pounding in his chest, the bitter taste of something acrid underneath his tongue. Something like fear, regret.

With his hands uncertain, Jae-ha took the note and unfurled it: _Out in town on business, won’t be back for the day._

As if. Jae-ha wanted to laugh; or perhaps he wanted to shout. As if Kija would be out “on business” at a time when he knew Jae-ha would crack the vault open. No, he refused to believe that, not even for a second. There must be another reason and Jae-ha’s heart clenched upon itself at the very thought of it.

Perhaps Kija had come to regret what had happened yesterday. Perhaps he’d found his shame and his skin now burned where Jae-ha had touched it. It wasn’t as if this hadn’t happened before. Jae-ha’d had men like that in his bed — men who’d been nothing more than curious and had since found their senses, or so they’d said. Men who’d wanted to dominate another, to show their superiority amongst their own. Men who’d wanted to be used so they could feel the rush of having control taken away from them. The first kind had always left Jae-ha on the bed, in pain. The latter had always gathered their clothes quickly and swung the door shut behind them, never to return.

He’d suspected Kija to be neither kind. He’d imagined him the type to moan Jae-ha’s name, not somebody else’s. To shout in bliss, not shout threats at him. To cradle Jae-ha’s cheek with his hand as Jae-ha spilled his seed inside of him, not degrade him with his fists. To cuddle in his arms after they had both finished and were drawing circles upon each other’s skin with their fingers.

Had Jae-ha wanted too much, expected more than he ought to have done?

Such were the thoughts running rampant inside the confines of Jae-ha’s mind as he withdrew the combination notes from his pocket and set to work.

He settled for rotating the safe’s switches, but the gears of his brain were louder than those behind the metal sheets coating the safe’s mechanism. Jae-ha felt the absence of Kija’s gaze on his back with every bit of his body, as though it was a physical thing, this sudden loss. A phantom pain for something which had been severed. A longing with every shred of him, every part that was his, every beat of his heart.

The day stretched long, drawn out like the ache for Kija’s return. Outside, the gardens appeared grim below the dark cast of Kuuto’s skies and late-spring rain was lashing down at the flowers, threatening to crush their delicate stems under its force. Jae-ha felt the wind breathe its menace as it rattled against the windows, shook their wooden frames. The tick of the old grandfather clock was even, willing Jae-ha’s heart to calm in sync with it, when all Jae-ha wanted to do was to find Kija and ask. Ask him where he’d gone wrong and if there could be any hope of fixing it. Jae-ha’s hands didn’t shake as he worked on the switches, though it was a near thing. They only trembled as he grasped the pencil he’d seen Kija press against the bottom of his lip, in thought.

It was a little before noon when he heard the click of the safe. The sound came unexpected, much earlier than he’d anticipated it. Jae-ha stilled, fingers still wrapped around the last switch.

Yet, he’d heard it. That unmistakable _click_ of gears as the switches had all lined up together. Carefully, he tugged at the knobs atop the squares and found that he could now slide them to the side to reveal the keyholes. The three locks were of different shapes. One looked like it required a key cut like a quaver note, the second like a spade. The last lock had the shape of a heart. As he looked at the locks, the thief was once again reminded of how impossible the safe would have been without Kija’s means of acquiring the keys. Jae-ha didn’t know how one would even go about picking such intricate locks.

And this was his work here done, wasn’t it? He could leave a note with the combination and slip it underneath Kija’s door, walk away without a single look back at the Hakuryuu estate that reminded him so very much of his old prison.

He could, but he would not.

Perhaps Kija was avoiding him after what happened; perhaps he wasn’t. At the very least, Jae-ha deserved to know and Kija deserved that Jae-ha offered to help him leave this wretched house. The thief wished that once upon a time, someone had offered him that small kindness. But no one had, and now he was here to set the wrongs right. He needed to find Kija.

Jae-ha crossed the threshold of the study, about to ask the Hakuryuu lackeys where their young master had gone. He’d nearly reached the stairs when a creak of wood at the opposite end of the hallway gave him halt. Beneath Kija’s door, where the light pooled out onto the floor, there was a quick dart of a shadow. Quietly, with the agility not of a cat but of something far more experienced — a thief, — Jae-ha positioned himself against the bedroom door. He tried to press down the knob, only to find it locked. He knocked.

There came no answer, but Jae-ha was listening too intently, breath held in his lungs, to miss the sharp intake of air from the inside of the room. He pressed a hand against the wooden frame of the door, found it unyielding even though he felt desperate enough to plead for it to open.

“I know you’re in there, Kija,” said Jae-ha, trying to keep any emotion out of his voice, lest it betrayed the stifled silence of his heart.

Again, no answer came. Jae-ha found it silly, felt himself sillier still. He should have known already. Known that if Kija had left for town, the Hakuryuu’s lackeys would have followed with. But realisations like that only came later, when his heart was not threatening to burst.

“Is it because of yesterday?” the thief asked quietly, leaning his forehead against the door. “Because I can leave, but not until you’ve told me where we went wrong.”

There it was again, that sharp intake of air, and then: “We did nothing wrong.”

Jae-ha’s heart betrayed him once more as it lurched forward with hope, with flame. It was a bittersweet feeling, that his suspicions had been proven wrong and yet, that there was something else. Something that eluded Jae-ha, still.

“Then why can’t I see you?”

Kija’s voice came in sounding muffled through the door: “Because I don’t want you to see me right now.”

Jae-ha frowned. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” came the boy’s response, “just leave me be.”

And what would the chances of that be? Jae-ha knew just how stubborn Kija was but it would seem the boy had yet to learn that there was one other person in Kuuto who could rival his bull-headedness. Jae-ha himself.

It took two to shape this dance but only one to lead it.

“As you wish,” the thief said. “I shall be waiting for you in the study the whole day if I have to. Better yet, I’ll even wait for your father to come home.” 

Jae-ha pulled himself away from the door, ignoring the protests that came rushing forth from the other side. He made his way back to the study, where he made himself comfortable in Kija’s armchair and picked up one of the books he’d seen the boy reading. It wasn’t as if he’d do more than glance at the words, meaningless without their context, but he wished to cradle the same book that Kija had held in his hands. As though it could offer some semblance of comfort, a shared touch.

Of course, Jae-ha didn’t have to wait for long. He’d already known Kija would capitulate soon enough. No matter how stubborn that boy could be, he was also human and the complexity of the heart was a weakness shared amongst all who’d been born under the same sky.

But once Kija had come in, reluctantly if the small span of his steps gave any indication, Jae-ha quickly realised what had been so wrong. Why the boy had wanted to remain locked in his room.

Because just across Kija’s cheekbone, that brittle, delicate thing, a bruise bloomed in violet. His father’s work, presumably.

“I will kill him,” Jae-ha said, almost as if to himself, and stood up sharply, nearly colliding with Kija who’d come to rest a hand on his shoulder.

“Jae-ha, you will do no such thing—”

He wasn’t listening; he’d hardly even heard his own words through the rush of blood ringing in his ears. They said that rage made you see flashes of white, then red, but Jae-ha only saw the violent purple across Kija’s cheek. It was the last thing he needed to see clearly because the next thing he’d be seeing was the look of Councilman Hakuryuu before Jae-ha’s fist cracked and splintered the bridge of his nose.

“Think clearly,” Kija pleaded with him as he held him by the arm, grip surprisingly strong. “A few more days and I’d never have to see the man again.”

Thinking clearly had never been Jae-ha’s forté. He was the sort of man to strike first and think only after. The kind of thief to steal because he could not help himself resist the taste, with absolute disregard for the consequences. He sharpened his knives before he asked questions. Unsheathed them before he’d even been provoked. No, thinking clearly was the difference between a sane, albeit fearful, man and one who’d come to learn that life served those who acted before the rest.

There were many things Councilman Hakuryuu would have to pay for, very few of which Jae-ha knew of. But he needn’t know every single monstrous thing to charge the man guilty. And the only way that Jae-ha knew to pass sentence was at the edge of one of his blades.

“Jae-ha,” Kija said again, “please.”

The thief’s eyes flashed, the lightning in them dangerous. “You continue to defend that man? After all the wrong he’s done you?”

“I do not _defend_ him.” Kija’s grip on the sleeve of his shirt tightened. “That man has gotten everything he has ever wanted of me, Jae-ha. The one happiness that I have and he doesn’t have control over, is you. You’re the _only_ part of my life that hasn’t been soiled by his cruelty and I want that it should stay this way.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Kija’s grasp the single harbour to guide him back, Jae-ha let himself be persuaded. Molten metal continued to surge in his veins in place of blood and his heartbeat had been replaced by a war drum, but he willed his feet unmoving.

“What happened?” Jae-ha found himself asking, voice still rough and jarred like perilous rocks.

He felt the relief in Kija’s voice when the boy said, “You were right in saying that the staff might talk if paid enough. There was also the matter of your coat in his study.”

Jae-ha made himself look at Kija’s face, letting the sight of the bruise fill in the blanks, the rest of the truths that had gone unsaid. He’d never wanted to see Kija hurt but he had to look so as to not forget that perhaps this would not have happened if he’d stayed, if he’d remembered to pick up his coat. If he’d taken Kija away from this damned place instead of entertaining this long game of subtle revenge.

“Did he find out about me?”

If the plan fell into ruin now, Jae-ha would only have himself to blame.

“Yes and no,” Kija said. “He doesn’t know the reason why you’re here; he only knows that you’re perhaps someone I’m seeing and he won’t stand for that in his house. It’s hardly the first time.”

Jae-ha’s eyes were still on the bruise. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not the first time he’s hit me because I’ve brought a man to his home.”

The thief willed his gaze away from the purple patch of wounded skin and let it settle on the boy’s blue eyes. “Is that why you got disowned?” he asked carefully, though he already knew the answer.

Kija’s gaze faltered, slid away, but Jae-ha wanted the boy to look at him without shame, without excuse. To feel no indignity in saying out loud what was no one else’s business to judge him for but his own to take pride in.

“My father found me with the cook’s son,” he said finally.

One of these days, Jae-ha would have to thank the crew for supplying that information to him or else he’d be thunderstruck. “Ah, then the rumours were true after all.”

Kija looked up again, but only for a brief second before he lowered his gaze again. If it were even possible, he appeared to cringe away and shut within himself further as he said: “You’ve known this whole time?”

“I knew,” Jae-ha confirmed. “But rumours do nothing for trust. I wanted you to tell me when you were ready. You shouldn’t have to hide, not with me.”

“Does all of this make me less of a man, you think?” the boy asked, began picking at his fingers as though he was shy of the question, in dread of the answer.

Less of a man, he’d thought. How could Jae-ha explain to him that it didn’t matter who you were, _what_ you were; that it didn’t matter how you’d come to being and if you’d end up getting buried in a family tomb or in an unmarked grave. What mattered was that you lived with the courage to fight for who you wanted to be, for the happiness that the world would not bestow you in gifts. No one was less because of what they were. They were less because they were waiting for others to make them full, to deem and validate them whole. They were letting shame decide who they were.

“Kija,” Jae-ha spoke gently. “The way you are with me, the way you were as you spoke yesterday — you’re already more than anyone else could ever hope you to be.”

The thief reached out to tip Kija’s chin with his fingers, already leaning in for the boy’s lips. Instead, Kija brought his face to rest on the side of Jae-ha’s, the two men now pressed cheek to cheek. Jae-ha felt the boy’s lips move against his ear when Kija said, “You’re the only one who’s seen me that way.”

Jae-ha smiled softly. “Has everyone else been blind?”

Kija drew back long enough to look at him. “They’ve all been cruel. To me, to you, to everyone who’s ever wanted more.”

_More_. As a thief, Jae-ha lived to desire more — to gather, to surround himself with, in trinkets and in worthless valuables. As a man, Jae-ha’s heart had always beat for more than an existence without something, someone, to dedicate itself to.

Jae-ha leaned in to kiss Kija’s forehead. At the hover of his lips against the skin, he whispered: “Not for much longer. I’ve cracked the safe.”

It should have been an odd consolation, but it was the least Jae-ha could offer him. When you were a thief, passion was a stolen necklace, love but a sheathed dagger. If he were a better man, a _respectable_ man, he’d promise Kija certainty. He’d offer him peace. Jae-ha didn’t know if such things existed outside of his world, but he knew that Kija would find none of that with him. Only reckless freedom and the thrill of happiness, unconditional of the rest of the world.

“It’s open?” Kija said, stepping back. He looked at the vault, then back at Jae-ha. “You did it?”

“You did hire the best thief in Kuuto for a reason, I hope,” Jae-ha replied. “The keys?”

The boy nodded, smiled. “I’ve had duplicates made.”

As Kija disappeared to grab the keys, Jae-ha turned to look on at the storm outside, rain still pelting against the frames of the windows. Perhaps even in the middle of a storm, there was shelter to be found.

Once the boy returned, letting the door fall shut behind him, he was carrying three brass keys — one a spade, the other a musical note, and the last a heart. Jae-ha let him unlock the keyholes while he stood back, hands folded in front of his chest. At each slide and turn of a key, he heard the metal disks on the inside of the vault tick, rotating so that their notches lined up and the bolts holding the safe locked could retract. The heavy, gurgling click as the final bolt gave hold was a magnificent sound, like the cock of a gun, only one they were holding to their advantage.

Kija turned back to peer at Jae-ha, the look on his face caught between delight and disbelief. It was so innocent, so pure. The thief chuckled, then nodded with his head towards the handle that had just protruded from a notch between the metal plates.

Once the boy opened the safe, Jae-ha felt his breath catch in his throat, just a quick prick of skin against a thorn. It was the thief in him, he knew, that felt the excitement, the rush of seeing the stacks of crown banknotes, the documents and ledgers. He saw the paintings, too, some the span of his arms, others small portraits. Oils coated the cotton fabrics as they stretched out against the thick, wooden frames of their canvas. 

Jae-ha looked at Kija, who was still peering at the contents of the safe, and said: “There’s certainly enough money in here for you too, you know. Does it not tempt you to take it? After everything he’s done?”

“I don’t want it,” said Kija stubbornly. “But I don’t want _him_ to have it either.”

The thief smirked. “Take it.”

The boy shook his head. “Burn it.”

“Money is much too precious, darling. People don’t wage war with hunger every day so you can burn crowns.”

Something flashed in Kija’s eyes. “Then we’ll take it,” he said. “We’ll take it and we’ll scatter it on the streets, let the money find its owners.”

Jae-ha laughed. “How outrageous.”

Kija smiled then, his cheeks red, his eyes alight. It was a smile that Jae-ha thought he might die to earn again, die a thousand times over if it was the price to pay for that serene sight.

“I must have picked it up from you,” the boy said as he walked towards him, pulled Jae-ha in.

He let the thief kiss his cheek, softly, just a breath over the bruised skin.

“Yesterday, you asked what _I_ wanted,” Kija said as Jae-ha laid kisses to his jaw, his neck. “Tell me in return, then: what do _you_ want?” 

Jae-ha paused at the spot where Kija’s pulse beat in his throat. What did Jae-ha want? The old answers came to mind: _money_ , _freedom_. But a different one roared to life inside of him, loud and insistent. _You_ , it said now. _You, Kija, only you_.

“I want you,” the thief said out loud, “and I must know if this can happen.”

_If_ we _can happen._

“Then you can have me,” Kija said and smiled softly. “You’ve had me for five years now, you know.”

“You were too young then.”

“Excuses,” Kija said in tease. Of course, that was true. Jae-ha had been merely fourteen his first time, but this felt different. “How do you want me now?”

There was no way for Jae-ha to explain _how_ he wanted Kija. He wanted him with his whole heart, as if it would burst were he to not catch a glimpse of those eyes every single day. He wanted him like he’d never desired anything, anyone ever before in his life. His body ached at the thought of him, like a boat caught at sea, groaning against the lash of wind and praying that the anchor may hold.

He wanted him a thousand different ways. Wanted to taste him, to hear him come undone from just his tongue. Wanted to take him upon his fingers, on this desk, on the floor if they couldn’t reach a bed. Wanted to pull eager moans from his lips, sounds that no one else had ever heard before. 

Jae-ha felt the press of his chest against Kija’s. He moved forward until he’d bracketed Kija against the desk, until the boy was standing on his tip-toes so he could lean his strength against it. The thief smiled and gently tugged at Kija’s waistcoat, his long fingers easing the buttons apart until the last of them had snapped open and the fabric hung loosely at Kija’s side.

“Really, Jae-ha?” Kija said, one eyebrow raised higher than the other. “On my father’s desk?”

“Just trust me, Junior.”

There was a nip of air as the boy sighed in exasperation. “I wouldn’t trust you to unbutton my shirt without stealing the cufflinks.”

“And yet, you let me do it anyway,” Jae-ha said. “After all that talk about defiance, I thought you’d have imagined this before.”

“I have.”

Jae-ha smiled. He needed the waves, the stars in Kija’s blue eyes. The deep escape. The sweet embrace of those lips. Jae-ha could feel the heat of Kija’s body against his. He slid his hand to the back of Kija’s neck, tilting his head back, asking for more as their lips pressed together.

That he was already hooked too far beyond salvation was true. He had been when he’d seen Kija two years ago in passing, as Jae-ha had been hiding from Kum-Ji’s gangsters and the boy had walked past. Just a flash of silver hair, of blue eyes and red lips, skin like delicate china. Had been on the night when he’d been brought to the Hakuryuu manor, had been done in since.

Jae-ha pushed closer, letting the kiss deepen, seeking that rising, falling, reckless sensation.

Kija shivered, shut his eyes. He let Jae-ha tilt his face back so he could slip in close and press his mouth against the sensitive skin of Kija’s throat. At the first touch of lips, Jae-ha heard the boy moan, felt his hands come up to grip Jae-ha’s hair tightly between his fingers.

“You were to blame, you know,” Kija said, already sounding winded.

The thief hummed. “What for?”

“You started it all. You came into my room that time and ever since, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Everyone suddenly seemed so tempting, yet so very pale in comparison to what I imagined you’d be like.”

The thief layered kisses upon his skin, behind his ear and over his pulse, at his shoulder and in the hollow of his throat. He pushed the waistcoat off Kija’s shoulders, down his arms, tossed it aside.

“What did you imagine I’d be like, Kija?” Jae-ha asked. “Gentle, rough?”

“Both,” the boy said. “Neither.”

Kija pulled at Jae-ha’s hair, directed his attention upwards again. Jae-ha answered him eagerly. And as their mouths met again, his hands pulled at Kija’s shirt, clever fingers now at work on its buttons. He felt the give of material. Kija must have, too, because his kiss became more desperate now, more greedy.

“And what did you imagine I’d do to you?” Jae-ha asked as he guided the fabric off Kija’s shoulders. He dropped it to the floor, while the thumb of his other hand remained on Kija’s soft skin, tracing gentle patterns up and down. 

“Everything,” Kija said, breathless. “Everything.”

The boy began work on unbuttoning Jae-ha’s shirt, laying him bare from the waist up. The thief saw Kija’s expression light up, as though he’d suddenly found an entire world to explore — from the valley of Jae-ha’s collarbone, through the faded scars and freckles, to the tense muscle of his stomach.

With Kija’s hands in exploration of his chest, Jae-ha made quick work of the other boy’s trousers, pushing them and his breeches down to Kija’s milk-white ankles.

They both moaned when Jae-ha’s calloused fingers met the soft, delicate skin of Kija’s ladder of ribs and muscle, down his waist. Another gasp tore itself free from his throat the moment Jae-ha’s hand dipped to palm his length and stroke, from base to tip. Grasping Kija’s shaft just below the head, Jae-ha placed his thumb on the tip and smoothed beads of fluid all around the tip. Kija’s body shuddered; he sucked in air through his teeth as Jae-ha continued, relentless. Kija panted, his forehead drifting to rest against Jae-ha’s. The thief chanced a gentle bite against the narrow swell of Kija’s lower lip and wrung a desperate sound from him. Hungry for more, Jae-ha slipped his tongue inside his mouth.

A shuddering breath escaped their kiss as the head of Kija’s shaft fell under Jae-ha’s skillful fingers. Kija’s right hand rose and sank into Jae-ha’s hair, where he gripped tight. His left hand pushed down on the thief’s trousers and breeches.

Jae-ha continued his tease one-handed. He raised his right hand, curling all but the first two fingers, and placed it just at Kija’s bottom lip. It took Kija only a moment to lean forward into the touch and take Jae-ha’s fingers into his mouth. The feeling that bloomed inside of Jae-ha as the boy swirled his tongue was raw and filthy, and painfully arousing. Jae-ha continued to stroke him as Kija sucked his fingers with the same stubborn determination with which he did everything.

Feeling every bit as desperate as Kija looked, Jae-ha pulled back. The retreat freed his fingers from the wet heat of Kija’s mouth. With his dry hand, Jae-ha pumped beads of fluid from Kija’s cock and collected them with his slick fingers, before he was reaching for the tight ring of muscle around Kija’s entrance.

“Have you ever gone this far before?”

Kija exhaled sharply. “I may not have had your experience, but I’m certain I know plenty.”

“Also the proper way to fold a napkin and dance the gigue. Your point being?”

“No one dances the gigue any more,” grumbled Kija. “And I’m no virgin Mary.”

Shame that Jae-ha wouldn’t be his first. Arousing that he could show him there was no one else who could ever come close to Jae-ha’s skill. Slowly, carefully, Jae-ha pushed a finger inside. As he teased the muscles loose, he continued to pepper Kija’s skin with kisses, teeth grazing against his collarbone, nuzzling against his throat.

Some day, Jae-ha would show him how he made love when he let go completely. He’d fuck the high-class and the aristocracy out of him, he’d make him beg like he’d never begged for anything before, and he’d show him what passion felt like when it was set free from its cage.

Today, Jae-ha would be gentle; he’d be at his beck and call. Tomorrow, he’d be taking him apart at the seams.

By the time he had three fingers stretching him open, Kija was in shambles, an anarchy of drawn-out whispers and wet moans. Then, Jae-ha was working that tangle of muscle which he knew would make Kija feel so good, so star-struck. And Kija moaned, loud and unabashed, leaning forward into Jae-ha’s chest, one arm around the thief’s shoulder and the other pumping his cock. Kija’s strokes were uneven, turning shaky every time Jae-ha would twist his fingers inside him. It took all of his self-control not to thrust up Kija’s palm, to save himself for when he was finally sheathed in Kija’s tight heat.

Jae-ha swiped the papers off the top of the desk. He pushed Kija back with the press of his palm against the boy’s chest, laid him down and leaned over him, hair cascading down his face as he bent.

Already, the need to press inside Kija was like a knot of feverish energy, a fire — rising up, rising forth. Jae-ha pushed the boy’s hand away from his cock and set out to pump it once, twice, smearing the flow beading out of the head across his length. He felt how hard he was already, how wet with his own melt, perhaps too much so but at least Kija’d take him in easier. He could already imagine the obscene sound as he buried himself to the hilt in Kija’s heat, the feeling, the lust.

Jae-ha brought his mouth to Kija’s ear all the while he guided his cock to press at the ring of muscle, and whispered: “Did I have you here, when you thought of me?”

“In my dreams, you’ve had me here a thousand times.” 

He felt Kija turn his face to find Jae-ha’s mouth again, kissing him fiercely. Felt when Kija wrapped his legs around his waist as Jae-ha slowly pushed inside of him. Kija moaned against his lips, the sound low and quivering, and Jae-ha smiled, maybe a hint too smugly.

As Jae-ha pushed in deep, as far as he could go before his hips were against Kija’s skin, he felt the boy’s back arching in response. Kija threw his head back against the desk, muffled a moan against Jae-ha’s mouth when the man began to thrust, slowly at first, then at a faster though still gentle pace. Jae-ha’s fingers came on either side of Kija, gripping the edge of the desk until his knuckles had turned white in his desperation to find his control.

Jae-ha wasn’t sure when they fell over together, but it was with Kija’s arm around his shoulder and their mouths joined in desperate kisses. And though the pleasure of Jae-ha pressed inside Kija’s tight heat felt more intense than any lay he’d had before, it was the way the boy’s kisses would stutter as he came closer to his release that were doing him in. It was one thing to feel the endless back-and-forth of skin, but quite another getting a taste of those hesitations, feeling Kija’s breath shudder, swallowing the boy’s groans. It all brought an edge that worked to unravel Jae-ha’s control completely.

As he raised himself up against the desk and looked down, — at the flush across Kija’s skin, at the way he was now biting his lower lip and his eyes shone like polished glass — Jae-ha realised they’d both been so very desperate. Kija was trying to hold out, he could tell, to time his release with Jae-ha’s. But it was already looking too much for him and he’d wanted it for half a decade too long.

“Don’t hold back, my love,” Jae-ha whispered as he lowered himself so he could rest back against the boy’s lips. “Come for me.”

Kija caved in at the words, his surrender almost immediate. He was trying to keep his mouth on Jae-ha’s, but he was arching bodily, head thrown back under the onslaught of pleasure as he spilled over their chests. Jae-ha held him as he shivered through the last of it, as the final shocks racked him and then after, as he breathed heavy. Unconcerned with propriety, Jae-ha trailed his hand up Kija’s trembling chest, pausing over his galloping heart and the sink and rise of his ribs as he breathed, and then his neck, his chin, his lip.

The boy whispered his name, the breath but a shudder against Jae-ha’s thumb. It was enough to send the thief over the edge, his thrusts now into stutters. The arrival of Jae-ha’s release came sudden and devastating. His body began to shudder as the first waves surged through him. His balls pulsed painfully and he began to jerk involuntarily. Beneath him, he saw Kija look up, ravish his face with his gaze. The boy raised his hand to hold Jae-ha, rest his fingers against his cheek, and the thief turned towards the touch, laying stuttered kisses to Kija’s wrist. 

Jae-ha’s release was not merciful. It wrung every bit of sensation out of Jae-ha’s body, sending hot trails of his seed inside of Kija. They stayed together, pressed chest to chest and forehead to forehead, long enough that their breathing finally eased, their hearts now even after the crescendo. Kija seemed every bit in ruin as Jae-ha suspected he himself looked, but the sight of his red flush was difficult to resist. Jae-ha cupped his face with one hand and turned it towards him to lay a slow, languid kiss that once more, left them breathless.

If it had been up to Jae-ha, he’d have likely not bothered with the mess they’d left behind, out of pure hatred for Councilman Hakuryuu, but Kija would hear none of it. He led Jae-ha to the bathroom first, a small but lavish display of luxury just opposite the study, where they cleaned up as best they could.

Jae-ha was running his fingers through Kija’s hair, unable to resist the feel of silver against his skin, when the boy spoke again.

“The day when the Hiryuu Bank got robbed, I was in town with Lady Yona, of the Hiryuu family,” Kija said unexpectedly and the older boy felt surprise. “As soon as we heard the gunshots, we hid inside one of the shops on 5th. No one knew what was happening until the owner’s friend came in and said that some thief with green hair was robbing the bank.”

It felt like forever ago, that day of the infamous heist which had shaken up the whole lot of Kuuto. Almost like a tale from a different lifetime, it beat in fluttering memory. 

“I knew it was you, so I ran,” Kija said with a smile, “I ran until I saw you on that roof, with the bag of gold bars strapped to your back. A whole garrison was stationed on the ground, cracking shots with their rifles, but you were so far up that they couldn’t land a single hit. You looked like some god.”

“Only gods don’t fall. You should remember what happened after.”

“I’d never forget,” the boy argued. “One of the shots tore the bag and you slipped and fell onto the lower roofs. I’d never felt more afraid in my life.”

“On my behest?” Jae-ha smiled. “Darling, you should have already known they’d never catch me.”

The thief needn’t say it had been a near thing, that day. He’d been younger, more reckless, less experienced. The garrison had shouted up at him and he’d shouted back, “You can’t kiss me from down there, officers!” Once that final shot had hit and he’d felt shock make his leg give out from underneath him, he’d thought himself dead already. He’d only escaped with his life and his freedom because Rowen and the gang from the travellers’ market had pounced on the garrison, bought him time to flee. And while he’d escaped death then, that had been the story of how he’d broken his leg, which had never set the way it should have. Just like nothing ever set right once life went wrong.

Kija smiled again, though this time with a tilt of bitterness to the curve of his lips. “I think that was the day when I realised just how impossible wanting you was.”

Of course, Jae-ha didn’t believe in impossibilities. His line of work shunned such sanity and doubt. He was here, wanting Kija back, wasn’t he? What impossibility was that when it had become true?

“Something tells me that—” and Jae-ha's hand travelled down to rest at Kija’s cheek “—hiring me for this job was just an excuse, then.”

“To be close to you?” asked Kija. “Absolutely, though I also did want the vault unlocked and you _are_ very good at what you do.”

Jae-ha smiled pointedly. “You’ve been planning this.”

“Five years is a long time,” Kija said, “to spend every day wishing that you be as you are now, in my arms. You haven’t an idea what it felt like at night, thinking about you and knowing you were in another’s embrace.”

“I am yours now.”

The boy looked up at him from beneath those thick, white lashes like sheets of ice. “Just for today?”

“For as long as you will want me,” the thief said.

Kija smiled, though he looked uncertain still. “What if I would want you forever?”

“Then I will be yours forever,” Jae-ha promised. “Forever while I am sane and forever while I am alive.”

“Please don’t say things like that if you don’t mean them.”

“But I do,” the thief said as he held his lover in his arms, leaned forward so he could rest his lips against his ear. “I meant every word.”

Already, Jae-ha felt his heart lurch forward at the words that were threatening to spill over his lips. For the first time in so long, he felt fear. Fear of what those words might do to them, fear that they might shatter something that was already so fragile, so very young, fear what might happen if he was rejected. But it was as he’d told Kija yesterday: as long as one was a man of fear, they were no man at all, merely a shadow. And so the words came rushing straight from his heart.

“Let’s run away,” Jae-ha said against the boy’s skin. “Let’s leave Kuuto. Together.”

He felt Kija’s pull away from his embrace, step back so they could look each other in the eye. “Leave?” he repeated, his tone one of disbelief.

“Five years ago, you wanted to live by your own rules, remember? You asked that I take you with me,” Jae-ha said. “Let me make due on that request. Moving from one Councilman’s house to another’s is not a life by your own rules, my love. I can show you what freedom feels like, if you’d let me.”

A second passed, then another. Kija said nothing. He simply turned away.

When Jae-ha had been just a little boy, his late mother had told him that someday, there’d be many women in his life. That he’d give them all flowers and compliment them for their smile, their laugh, but there’d be only one woman whom he’d learn the favourite flower of, one whose smile and whose laugh his heart would beat for. Only one would love the scent of wild geraniums; only one he’d bother to commit every part of to his memory.

When he’d stumbled into Gi-Gan’s care, she’d told him that someday, there’d be many enemies in his life and he’d learn to treasure his allies. He’d pick his favourite knives and sharpen them with care, he’d even learn to trust them with his life. She’d told him that he’d find people who understood him along the way, people who wouldn’t mind the scars and would embrace his sharp edges. 

In Kija, Jae-ha suddenly saw everything. At that moment, he believed in everything he’d been told before and had thought himself too crooked a thief to ever know.

He was the only one who smelled of early spring tulips and sweet dewberries, of old books and summer breeze. He was the only one who had made Jae-ha hope that he’d be accepted for his knives and his scars, his past and present. And now, Jae-ha didn’t think there’d be any future where they would go back to living as they had — apart, connected by only a memory, by just this wretched house.

Jae-ha felt his heart beat like a madman’s. Kija was tongue-tied in silence; the thief’s words were lost to the storm happening outside. 

“Come with me,” he spoke again, this time a pleading note to his tone. “I’ll take you to the ports in Awa, and the hot-springs in Fuuga, and high up to the mountains in Saika. And once we’ve been everywhere in Kouka, I’ll take you to Xing, and Kaitei, and Sei, anywhere. We can travel and we won’t have to stop, not until we’ve found a place to settle.”

When Kija remained silent, Jae-ha brushed his hair back and with his palm, guided him to face him. When the boy finally turned towards him, Jae-ha saw Kija’s expression was one close to tears. Jae-ha embraced him in his arms, let Kija’s head rest just below his chin, in the hollow of his throat.

“Please,” Jae-ha said as he kissed the crown of Kija’s head. “I don’t want to go where you won’t follow.”

A harsh breath tore itself free from the boy’s chest. “Yes,” he whispered finally, the sound ragged. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

Jae-ha felt a flutter as his heart, instead of easing, surged forth with force anew, a blaze beyond fire, hotter than the molten depths of the Earth. He brought his face down to meet the boy’s, a soft brush of the tip of his nose against Kija’s. If time could stand still, Jae-ha would take this moment and make it last forever.

“You will?” the thief asked, if only to hear the answer again.

“Anywhere,” Kija said just at the hover of Jae-ha’s lips against his. “Anywhere at all, as long as we’re together.”

And in their kiss, Jae-ha tasted a promise. There, in the heat of their lips pressed together, he felt a million suns setting his days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this story and its conclusion! It started out as a very odd idea but has since grown on me, so I do hope that you had fun reading it! :)
> 
> I'm sorry for the delay in posting this one but the truth is that I just couldn't find the motivation to keep writing, at all, and every word was such a struggle. I love these stories and I love JaeKi, but I've been frustrated with writing for the past month(s) now and with my writing, in particular, over the past few weeks. I want to write better and I think I won't be able to do so if I'm spending more time writing than reading. Therefore, I've decided to take a long break now that this is finally finished, to take a step back and leave the JaeKi tag in the capable hands of a few other super talented creators! I have a few more JaeKi stories but I'll probably write/post them in late summer or beyond, it's all very unclear at this point
> 
> Thank you for staying with me for so long and thank you for your support across these stories! It has meant a lot to me, so I hope these stories have been a little something for you, too!!
> 
> Take care, dear Readers! :)


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